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IBM shows 'Smarter Planet' progress

By Zhang Jiawei (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-10-22 17:51

IBM held an "Opening Day" activity on Oct 20 in Beijing showing for the first time the progresses it has achieved since it brought out the "Smarter Planet" initiative at the beginning of 2009.

The show covered areas of energy saving and emissions cutting, food safety, environmental protection, transportation, medical services, modern services industry, software services, cloud computing and virtualization, all of which are hot topics currently around the world and also are the focus of IBM's "Smarter Planet" idea.

Dong Jin, an expert from IBM, showed how they used their advance technology and research capability to help banks choose smarter locations for their branches in order to get the most profits at the lowest costs.

"Up to now, IBM has provided analytical and optimization services for more than 3,000 bank branches in and out of China," Dong said.

He also showed how IBM helped develop smarter power grids which are much more effective and efficient to reduce energy waste in power transmission, and how they optimized the logistics networks using statistical and mathematical methods.

Cloud computing was also discussed at the show. Ray Tan from IBM said the current distributed computing is wasting 85 percent of computer efficiency around the world, which can be avoided by using cloud computing.

Problems brought by the current complex information technology environment could be solved via cloud computing and business innovation would also be promoted greatly if cloud computing spread widely, Tan said.

IBM has been working on cloud computing for three years and has cooperated with several hundred clients, according to Tan.

The show was all about the "Smarter Planet" idea which was brought out by IBM at the beginning of the year in a bid to bring its technology into people's daily life.

"'Smarter Planet' is really about getting the use of technology to allow the way we live and the way we use the limited resources on the planet to be in a more intelligent and effective way," said Alan Ganek, chief technology officer and vice president of strategy and technology, Software Group, IBM.

According to Ganek, a smarter planet should be "instrumented", "interconnected" and "intelligent".

Thinking and acting in new ways to make IBM's systems more efficient, productive and responsive is important in building a smarter planet, according to Ganek.

"Some of the key challenges are integrating the very solutions and the sense of technologies," Ganek said when asked about the challenges that lie ahead of carrying out the "Smarter Planet" plan.

"We are dedicated to open standards to enable the implementation by many companies and governments and private industry so that solutions can be integrated and may add value, and we have some of the smartest people working on the standard," Ganek said.

"There are many challenges but I think we are making concrete progress and I am excited on the potential," Ganek added.

Related readings:  IBM sets up analytics solution center in Beijing  IBM, iPark announce launch of PangooSky  IBM bolsters Juniper partnership  IBM sets up rail innovation center

The "Smarter Planet" project involves huge investments. IBM now invests more than $6 billion each year in research and development, more than half of which goes into the "Smarter Planet" project, according to DC Chien, CEO of IBM Greater China.

Chien said IBM is a great company of innovative thoughts and strong research capabilities which bring them on average 10 patents each day. "In the revolutionary era of the development of the Internet and the Internet of things,‘Smarter Planet' initiative will together create another valuable chance," Chien said.