Alibaba’s next “new species”

Recently, at the 2018 Hangzhou Yunqi Conference, Alibaba Cloud announced the launch of the "Darwin Project" as the "Sky IoT LoRa Station" airship took off. Is a revolution of "intelligent connection of all things" coming?

"Darwin Project": Through a series of full-link ecological services including platforms, chips and micro base stations, we will comprehensively promote the coverage and popularization of wide-area Internet of Things technology LoRa, enable every enterprise to have its own LoRa network and provide enterprises with a self-controlled Internet of Things.

"Now, every family has WIFI. In the future, every company will have LoRa." This is Alibaba's slogan.

At the Yunqi Conference, Alibaba Cloud IoT and ASR (ASR Technology) jointly released the ultra-small single-chip ASR6501 that integrates the ultra-low power LoRa1262. The chip has obtained the LoRa chip semiconductor intellectual property (IP) license from Semtech.

This chip can deeply integrate LoRaWAN, LinkWAN and AliOS Things, and is suitable for various IoT application scenarios such as metering, smart cities, security, smart agriculture, smart logistics, smart buildings, etc., thereby providing services for the entire industry chain.

LoRa is an important technology designed for wireless transmission in the Internet of Things. Its advantage is that it achieves unprecedented low-power long-range wireless communication at the lowest cost. For example, monitoring whether the drainage system in the city is normal can be achieved through the perception of the LoRa chip.

At the same time, Beijing Gehua Cable, Oriental Pearl, Wasu Media, Sichuan Radio and Television Network and Alibaba Cloud IoT jointly announced that they would carry out in-depth cooperation in LoRa networks and IoT services. The two parties will rely on spectrum resources and IoT full-link resources to quickly and cost-effectively build IoT networks.

( Alibaba Cloud Product Director He Yunfei introduced Fei Tian 2.0 )

"Feitian 2.0 supports Alibaba Cloud's global infrastructure and is widely adapted to hundreds of millions of terminals, covering the last mile of computing," said He Yunfei, product director of Alibaba Cloud.

Apsara is a large-scale cloud computing operating system independently developed by Alibaba Cloud. It can connect millions of servers around the world into a supercomputer and provide computing power for society.

FeiTian 2.0 has more robust technical facilities, including full-scenario coverage from ECI startup in seconds to cloud supercomputing clusters, cloud-edge integrated collaborative computing and AI capabilities, a globally accessible network and full support for IPv6, allowing everything to be connected, computed and intelligent anytime and anywhere.

Fei Tian 2.0 is compatible with 90% of IoT communication solutions on the market. At the Yunqi Conference, Alibaba Cloud disclosed that the Hangzhou City Brain Project based on the Fei Tian platform covers an area of ​​420 square kilometers in Hangzhou, takes over 1,300 traffic light intersections, accesses 4,500 video channels, and can process real-time analysis of tens of billions of pieces of information.

It is understood that "Feitian" has spread across more than 200 data centers around the world, providing computing services to millions of users. It has capabilities such as billions of connections, millisecond-level response, EB-level storage space, and a single cluster scale of 10,000 machines.

(Alibaba Cloud IoT strategy diagram)

"Alibaba Cloud is deploying edge computing around the world to make computing ubiquitous and realize the intelligence of all things." Hu Xiaoming emphasized that edge computing is closer to the data source, can process data quickly, and make judgments in real time, solving the problems of delay and rapid processing.

At the Yunqi Conference, Alibaba Cloud IoT and Intel jointly launched a cloud-edge integrated edge computing product, which is an open framework specifically for IoT applications. It includes Intel hardware, artificial intelligence technology, and Alibaba Cloud IoT's latest products such as platform and operating system.

Intel also provides the Open VINO toolkit for deep learning focused on the edge, which transforms visual data into business insights. Alibaba Cloud IoT provides the edge computing product Link Edge and the IoT operating system AliOS Things.

Link Edge can be deployed in smart devices and computing nodes of different sizes, providing efficient, secure, and intelligent communication connection capabilities between devices and the cloud. AliOS Things is a lightweight IoT embedded operating system launched by Alibaba Cloud IoT, providing key capabilities such as application management of cloud-integrated devices.

Thomas Lantzsch, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Internet of Things Group, said: "With the significant advantages of Intel and Alibaba Cloud IoT, this solution will provide strong support for the digital transformation of the industry in terms of computing, software and hardware, artificial intelligence, and the cloud. The successful implementation of the platform in the industrial field also makes us firmly believe that the combination of edge computing and the cloud can help more companies achieve efficient innovation and further gain market opportunities."

(Ku Wei, general manager of Alibaba Cloud IoT Division, explains the new strategy at the Yunqi Conference)

On Alibaba's IoT platform, there are hundreds of categories and nearly 40 million smart home products connected.

Ku Wei, general manager of Alibaba Cloud IoT Division, said: "The entire smart home covers more than 100 categories, has its own scene intelligence solutions in 30 application scenarios, and has more than 50 sets of services open to the public."

Intelligence is not limited to the house. Alibaba Cloud IoT will provide comprehensive scenario coverage in the entire community environment. Ku Wei said: "We have cooperated with many domestic real estate developers in this regard. I believe that we will see more and more smart scenario solutions in the next generation of homes in the future."

In Hangzhou, the renovation of the Future Science and Technology City project in Yuhang District has increased the utilization rate of idle parking spaces by 90% and the efficiency of intelligent inspections by urban management has increased by more than 60%.

At the Yunqi Conference, Alibaba Cloud announced that it will jointly build a "Future City Laboratory" with the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design. Yang Baojun, president of the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, said that they will rely on the advantages of both parties to jointly develop intelligent comprehensive solutions for future cities, and will explore new ways of urban growth in Xiong'an. While building a physical city, they will simultaneously build a virtual city with full space-time perception, full-factor linkage, and full-cycle iteration.

Currently, Alibaba Cloud has more than 240 ecological partners and applications in over 35 scenarios.

At Tao Factory, Alibaba Cloud IoT's industrial Internet platform helps small and medium-sized clothing factories improve production efficiency and achieve lean production, increasing production scheduling by 6% and shortening delivery cycles by 10%.

Although the Industrial Internet Platform is the latest business segment of Alibaba Cloud IoT, it is also considered a very valuable business. Currently, Alibaba Cloud Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Internet Platform covers 10 industries and has more than 500 ecological partners.

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