From the Internet of Everything to the Intelligent Connection of Everything, the semiconductor giants and technology giants not only set their sights on subdivision application fields such as smart home, autonomous driving, big data, cloud computing, etc., but are also committed to challenging a wider range of application scenarios and creating a lower level for humans. A smart city experience that consumes more energy, is safer and more humane...
A few days ago, Infineon Technology and Tencent Cloud held a cooperation signing ceremony, officially announcing that the two parties will cooperate in the field of smart buildings, through efficient and sustainable project development, to work together to create a more environmentally friendly and safer future buildings.
As we all know, Infineon is a world-renowned international semiconductor company, and Tencent is an IoT + AI Chinese technology company. Why do two iconic companies that focus on different fields hit it off and promote cooperation in the field of smart buildings? This has to start with the status quo of the development of intelligent buildings.
The three major components of smart buildings
In recent years, as China's urbanization, digitalization, and intelligence are accelerating, the smart building market has been favored by the industry. According to a report released by the Industrial Research Institute, the total scale of China's building intelligence market will reach 1.06 trillion. The business mainly includes the direct application of intelligent technology in new buildings and the intelligent transformation of existing buildings. Among them, core components such as chips, sensors, and power devices are naturally indispensable.
According to Andreas Urschitz, President of Infineon Technologies’ Power Management and Diversified Markets Division, smart buildings have three major components:
The first is to collect information, including but not limited to installing various sensors in the building to achieve collection, monitoring and other functions;
The second is to transmit data. The massive information collected must be converted into effective data and uploaded to the cloud/edge in real time, so that real-time interconnection between sensors and sensors and data processing terminals are maintained;
The third is the operating platform, that is, the data processing system. Through artificial intelligence, cloud computing and other algorithms, the collected effective data is summarized, classified, and analyzed, and scientific processing plans or opinions are given.
At present, the first and second areas are relatively mature, but the data processing system is still relatively lacking. In addition to the accelerated deployment and commercialization of 5G communications in 2019, its broadband will be wider, the number of connections will increase, and the transmission of data will be faster. The data processing system will be the last hurdle to realize the "Internet of Everything". Under such an industrial background, the cross-border cooperation between Infineon and Tencent Cloud is a matter of course.
Cross-industry cooperation between Infineon and Tencent Cloud
According to reports, Infineon, as a provider of innovative sensors and security solutions, will provide strong support for the development of smart buildings in Tencent's smart building system plan, as well as Tencent's other cloud solutions. For Tencent Cloud, it will adopt solutions including Infineon's smart downlights, and integrate Infineon's leading sensors into Tencent's smart building system.
Specifically, Infineon will provide sensors that simulate the four human senses-sound sensors, like smart ears; gas sensors, like smart noses; pressure sensors, like smart touch; and finally radar sensors and 3D sensors, just like human eyes.
"Infineon will integrate these various sensors into smart hardware to collect real-time information, including the number of people in the room, the flow direction of the people, the temperature of the room, the carbon dioxide concentration, etc. Then, this information will be Uploaded to the cloud through Tencent Cloud's Welink (Welink) operating system, parsed into valid data, and accurately analyzed through AI algorithms, and gave plans or suggestions for the next instruction operation. Finally, the operation instructions will be fed back to the hardware through Welink Go in and complete the implementation." Andreas Urschitz said.
It is reported that Tencent Cloud will use a smart downlight solution from Infineon. It uses 24GHz XENSIV™ radar technology to count the flow of people under the lamp head, and at the same time adjust the lighting intensity according to the flow of people, thereby improving energy-saving effects.
In the future, three technical challenges for smart buildings
Looking forward to the development trend of smart buildings, Andreas Urschitz put forward three challenges.
The first is energy consumption. With the changes in population and social structure, people will become richer, but society will also face the problem of aging. This has led to people gradually migrating from rural to urban areas, and mega-cities will bring great challenges to the entire ecological resources.
The second is the security issue. It can be imagined that the smart buildings of the future are full of various data. But these data are private to each individual, and no one wants their data to be easily attacked during transmission.
Finally, there is human-computer interaction. Infineon hopes that the human-computer interaction experience will be more natural and smooth in the future, just like the interaction between people.
In order to solve the above problems, the future cooperation between Infineon and Tencent Cloud will be carried out in the following aspects. In terms of energy consumption, Infineon's sensors, coupled with Tencent's cloud computing capabilities and algorithms, and Welink's operating system, help the operation of buildings to be more energy-efficient and greener. In terms of data security, Infineon can Providing end-to-end data security solutions, Tencent Cloud can ensure network security from different dimensions; in terms of human-computer interaction, the two parties also plan to promote human-computer interaction (HMI) in the field of smart buildings through other activities, such as smart lighting and smart speakers , Or sensors with AI functions; at the same time, a lot of research and development will be invested in speech recognition and gesture control, so that the interaction between people and the machine is more humane.
In general, the future market space for smart buildings is still large, and the cooperation between the two parties is full of infinite possibilities. Wan Chao, vice president of Tencent Cloud, said: "Infineon is one of the world's leading semiconductor manufacturers, and its technologies and solutions that can make life more convenient, safer, and more environmentally friendly are exactly what Tencent's intelligent building system needs. We are very pleased to be able to cooperate with Infineon to explore new possibilities and further promote development in the fast-growing smart building market."
