Liu Jiangchuan on Edge Computing: Key Technology for Next-Gen Internet

As 2019 begins, the popularity of edge computing continues to rise. In the report of the two sessions in 2019, the State Grid Corporation proposed the construction of a “ubiquitous power Internet of Things,” focusing on edge intelligence.

From its inception, Jiangxing Intelligent has aimed at the application of edge computing in fields such as power and renewable energy. Professor Liu Jiangchuan, chairman and CEO of Jiangxing Intelligent, believes, “Edge computing is the part of cloud computing that naturally sinks; edge computing can serve as a hub for data aggregation. Only by aggregating data can we further analyze and control it, thereby collaborating with the ‘cloud’.” He hopes to leverage over a decade of accumulated technology in computer networks with his team to activate the integration of IoT terminals and cloud computing, breaking the bottleneck between machine algorithms and actual needs, and advancing the smart IoT to the next stage.

The following is a report from the “IoT Think Tank” on the exclusive interview with Liu Jiangchuan.

Liu Jiangchuan on Edge Computing: Key Technology for Next-Gen Internet

From Scholar to Entrepreneur

Since 2004, Dr. Liu Jiangchuan has been focusing on edge storage and distribution technologies. In recent years, he has engaged in in-depth cooperation with well-known companies such as Huawei and Alibaba in the field of edge computing. He has held important positions such as conference chair and editorial board member in top international journals and conferences, and serves on the editorial board of flagship publications in computer networks, big data, mobile computing, and multimedia (IEEE/ACM ToN, IEEE TBD, IEEE TMC, IEEE TMM), and is also on the editorial board of the special issue on edge computing of the China Computer Federation’s network journal (CCF ToN).

When asked about the direct reason for his transition from scholar to CEO, Liu Jiangchuan replied: “Running a business is a challenging endeavor, and achieving success in it is a very interesting pursuit.Practicing theory step by step in complex real-world scenarios yields not just a sense of accomplishment!“

Why Choose Edge Computing?

Starting a business in the consumer Internet field requires not only technological leadership but also capital investment. However, the industrial Internet is different: on one hand, it requires long-term technological accumulation; on the other hand, its fragmentation is very high, which is completely different from social networks, cloud computing, streaming video, and content distribution. There are too many types of industries, making it difficult for even the largest companies to establish a comprehensive platform.

The high fragmentation of the industrial Internet creates highly specialized needs, and this vertical specialization is precisely the advantage of Jiangxing Intelligent. By rooting itself in edge computing and creating benchmark application scenarios in several industries, Jiangxing Intelligent can rapidly develop.

First, the development of the industrial Internet presents opportunities. With the advancement of IoT and artificial intelligence, the pace of industrial Internet development is accelerating. The real-time and privacy requirements of the industrial Internet provide significant growth opportunities for edge computing. Jiangxing Intelligent has accumulated many years of experience in edge computing, entering from the highly monopolized power industry, where technical barriers can facilitate rapid growth.

Second, the Jiangxing Intelligent team possesses edge computing “genes.” The team at Jiangxing Intelligent has a profound understanding of edge computing and the power industry. Co-founder and Vice President for Business Shao Junsong has nearly 20 years of experience in the domestic and North American power industry, primarily engaged in research, consulting, and service work in the field of smart grid safety operation. He worked for 8 years at NARI Group, focusing on research in power grid safety and stability control technology, control system development, and large-scale industrialization; he also worked for nearly 4 years in the North American power system, engaging in planning, design, and consulting work.

In addition, core employees of Jiangxing Intelligent have previously worked at Tencent, Microsoft, SAP, 360, Zhihu, NARI, etc.; they have created Internet products with over ten million users; managed thousands of server clusters, PB-level distributed databases, and handled daily business access of 1 billion; and published hundreds of papers in top ACM and IEEE conferences and journals, winning multiple best paper awards and technology innovation awards.

Third, edge computing and 5G create greater synergy. With the issuance of 5G licenses, the combination of 5G and edge computing will develop more application scenarios. 5G is situated at the edge of the network, and due to its characteristics of low latency and high bandwidth, to truly realize various services of 5G, computing and storage work must be performed at the edge nodes of 5G or at its base stations, which provides immense imaginative space for edge computing.

Industrial Internet Research Outcomes: EdgeBox

Liu Jiangchuan has expressed many viewpoints on the industrial Internet. Many industrial systems are themselves an IoT, but due to limited data processing capabilities and outdated data processing algorithms, there is a significant gap between OT technologies and IT technologies in industrial systems. This gap is expected to be bridged against the backdrop of the gradual maturity of current technologies such as edge computing and artificial intelligence, thereby unleashing greater productive capacity.

The product developed by Liu Jiangchuan’s team is called “EdgeBox,” which can couple advanced computing algorithms and powerful computing capabilities with industrial production environments, empowering industrial production with computer technology. Through edge computing technology, industrial data can be processed, warned, and controlled locally, significantly enhancing the level of industrial intelligence.

Jiangxing Intelligent’s EdgeBox is located at the edge of the industrial Internet, greatly enriching the functionalities of various gateways, programmable logic controllers (PLC), industrial PCs, human-machine interaction devices, or other edge systems, and providing unprecedented low latency, machine learning, and artificial intelligence capabilities for onsite data processing and real-time analysis. This helps industrial clients in manufacturing, oil and gas, hydropower, transportation, mining, renewable energy, smart cities, and other fields to process big data and artificial intelligence in real-time. EdgeBox has already been applied in Jiangxing Intelligent’s smart charging station deployed in Wuxi, reducing data transmission volume by 95% compared to traditional cloud computing architectures and shortening decision-making time to one-fifth.

Jiangxing Intelligent’s Application Case Studies

Jiangxing Intelligent manages and analyzes massive amounts of IoT devices and data to help enterprises improve efficiency and reduce risks. Currently, its core application scenarios mainly lie in the power and renewable energy sectors.

1. Power Industry

Edge computing technology for faults and hidden dangers in high-voltage transmission lines in the power industry.

▨ Background: Hidden dangers frequently occur in transmission “three-crossing” lines, maintenance costs are rising, and the frequency of faults increases with line length, while the growth rate of maintenance personnel cannot match the length of the lines.

▨ Solution: An online monitoring system for high-voltage transmission lines based on edge computing, which significantly reduces communication costs and computing delays by assigning computational work to the side closer to the service end, only sending back information that requires warnings to the server.

Edge computing technology for abnormal monitoring of substations in the power industry.

▨ Background: Substations bear significant safety responsibilities, and the risk of operation and inspection is high, creating a huge market demand for unmanned operation and maintenance of substation equipment.

▨ Solution: Through edge computing image recognition technology, the visual images of substation equipment inspection are recognized, with application scenarios mainly divided into five major categories and nine subcategories, including component damage, respirator defects, foreign objects, oil leakage defects, and metal corrosion defects.

2. Smart New Energy Vehicle Charging Station Platform

According to predictions, China’s goal for the development of charging infrastructure is to build 12,000 centralized charging stations and 4.8 million distributed charging piles by 2020 to meet the charging needs of 5 million electric vehicles nationwide. The operation and maintenance of new energy vehicle charging stations face complex situations and challenges in real-time monitoring and management. Jiangxing Intelligent utilizes deep learning and edge computing devices to launch a comprehensive optimization solution for new energy vehicle charging processes. Compared to traditional manual methods, it can solve the problem of occupied charging spaces, improve charging station revenue, respond promptly to faults and risks, and reduce operation and maintenance costs.

In addition to the above scenarios, Jiangxing Intelligent is also exploring localized content distribution and live streaming scenarios. In summary, these scenarios share common characteristics, including large data transmission and computation volumes, high real-time requirements, and limited network bandwidth resources.

Liu Jiangchuan predicts that edge computing is a key technology for the next generation of the Internet. The inherent flaws of the traditional Internet over the decades have caused significant challenges for the current Internet, especially in industrial application scenarios. In the past, some have considered starting from the bottom to transform, but this idea has basically been completely abandoned—bottom-up transformation is simply too costly and nearly impossible.

2019 is the first year for the power system to begin constructing a ubiquitous power Internet of Things. In March of this year, the State Grid issued the work deployment for the construction of the ubiquitous power Internet of Things, aiming to fully apply mobile internet, artificial intelligence, and communication technologies to achieve the interconnection of all things and human-computer interaction in various links of the power system, with comprehensive monitoring of status, efficient information processing, and powerful processing capabilities that are convenient and flexible.

The ubiquitous power Internet of Things includes five core modules: cloud, management, edge, field, and terminal, where edge computing serves as the core hub module. The construction of the ubiquitous power Internet of Things requires larger scale, lower latency, and higher frequency for perception, early warning, and real-time control of the power system, making edge computing a key component of the development strategy for building the future energy Internet. After a year of development, Jiangxing Intelligent’s products have penetrated various scenarios in the power industry. In the process of intelligent transformation of traditional power systems for transmission and transformation inspection, distribution-side IoT, and comprehensive energy terminals, edge computing has demonstrated irreplaceable advantages.

We are pleased to see that not only the State Grid has positioned edge computing as an important development strategy, but other industry leaders have also chosen to enhance the supply capacity and efficiency of traditional industries by vigorously developing edge computing, allowing existing data resources to generate greater value. In 2019, leading enterprises in the industrial Internet, such as Beijing Enterprises Water Group, China Tower, and China Unicom, reached strategic cooperation agreements with Jiangxing Intelligent. Although navigating the vertical fields of the industry is filled with unknown challenges, we can see that the development of the IoT anticipates bottom-up innovation. Edge computing is the key to unlocking this transformation.

Original Title / Exclusive Interview with Dr. Liu Jiangchuan: Edge Intelligence is the Engine Driving Smart IoT!

Source / IoT Think Tank

(The article has been slightly edited and modified)

Jiang Xing Zhi Neng

Field: Technology/Media

Jiangxing Intelligent was founded in 2018 by internationally renowned scientist and Canadian Academy of Engineering Fellow, IEEE Fellow Professor Liu Jiangchuan. The company is dedicated to the development of advanced edge computing technologies and their applications in energy Internet, industrial safety supervision, smart warehousing, and other fields, and has received several million yuan in venture capital from Sequoia China Seed Fund since its inception.

Sequoia Capital has always been committed to helping entrepreneurs build evergreen great companies, bringing rich global resources and valuable historical experience to its portfolio companies. For 47 years, Sequoia Capital has invested in numerous innovative companies and leaders of industrial trends.

Sequoia Capital China Fund, as “the entrepreneur behind the entrepreneur,” focuses on technology/media, healthcare, consumer products/modern services, industrial technology investment opportunities. Over the past fourteen years, Sequoia Capital China Fund has invested in nearly 600 companies with distinct technological characteristics, innovative business models, high growth potential, and development potential.

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