News

Toshiba Joins EdgeX Foundry to Help Unify IoT Edge Computing

July 18, 2017
Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation

KAWASAKI—Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation (TDSL) has become the first Japanese company to join EdgeX Foundry, hosted by The Linux Foundation, which aims to accelerate deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions on a common open framework. As a member of EdgeX Foundry, TDSL will reinforce the development of its edge computing technology for compatibility with the EdgeX framework and contribute to unifying the IoT marketplace.

EdgeX Foundry is a vendor-neutral open source project to build a common open framework for IoT edge computing. At the heart of the project is an interoperability framework hosted within a full hardware- and OS- agnostic reference software platform to enable an ecosystem of plug-and-play components that unifies the marketplace and accelerates deployment of IoT solutions.

TDSL is offering its IoT architecture SPINEX to help customers accelerate digital transformation and improve business efficiency. SPINEX was developed leveraging Toshiba Group’s extensive industrial knowledge and expertise built up across various sectors from semiconductor to industrial and social infrastructure systems, consisting of three major features: edge computing, RECAIUS (media intelligence) and digital twin. As Toshiba Group has its demand in turning massive data generated at its worksites into actionable intelligence right at the edge, Toshiba recognizes the crucial role of edge computing and has been putting efforts in developing and improving the technology. Being a user and a solution provider of IoT edge computing, Toshiba sees the common challenge across the board of lacking an interoperable software platform or framework EdgeX Foundry is developing. TDSL will first enable the use of its existing edge computing solutions to be compatible with the EdgeX framework, and help advance the simplification and standardization of industrial IoT solutions leveraging its practical experience and domain knowledge generated from actual customer use cases.

“As IoT continues to advance, widespread fragmentation and the lack of a common IoT solution framework become a critical issue,” said Shigeyoshi Shimotsuji, Director and Vice President at Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation. “Together with other EdgeX Foundry members, Toshiba looks forward to contributing our practical knowhow accumulated as an IoT edge computing user and solution provider to help fulfill a global ecosystem that can drive interoperability and digital transformation.”

EdgeX Foundry

https://www.edgexfoundry.org/ (Linux Foundation)

“EdgeX Foundry leverages the open and interoperable software platform to accelerate deployment of IoT solutions for edge computing and the industrial internet of things,” said Phillip DesAutels, Senior Director of IoT at The Linux Foundation. “ Toshiba’s wide range of business domains, from consumer products to civil infrastructure brings relevant real world expertise to the EdgeX project. We are excited that Toshiba will share their knowledge and experience with EdgeX Foundry so that we can build a strong ecosystem that can quickly and securely deliver interoperability between a myriad of IoT devices, applications and services.”