As per the reports published in the Bangkok Post, the global technology and IT firm, Cisco Systems, has opened a Co-Innovate Center in Southeast Asian country, Singapore, to tap the growing opportunities arising out of various fields such as digital transformation, the blockchain, and cybersecurity.
Cisco’s Chief Technology Officer for engineering and Chief architect of Cisco systems, Dave Ward, stated that there are currently around 14 new centers across the world that would assist in motivating the development of new technology through the use of rapid prototypes to meet the requirements of digital transformation.
The IT firm would provide several prototypes and exhibit probable applications of new technology in various commercial contexts, public offices and education.
The center would publicize the Rotterdam Project where several aspects of port operation such as vehicles, cargo, cranes, rails, autonomous ships, weather and water levels would be fully automated by 2023. Further, the same technology would be used to develop ports in Singapore and Thailand.
Mr. Ward, speaking about the technology at the opening ceremony in Singapore, further stated that “the center will showcase potential digital transformation offerings to customers, industry partners, startups, the public sector and universities to work on problems unique to the region, especially in cybersecurity, the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain.”
He further also added that “Asean is a growing economic region where there is an opportunity for sensor technology to serve autonomous ports in Singapore and Thailand. “
Currently, Asean possesses a massive manufacturing base which would be further used for preventive maintenance for nil downtime and failure estimation. The cost incurred by unintended downtime is US$5,000 (156,432 baht) or more per minute at factories, and $22,000 per minute or more for the auto industry.
As per the reports of the International Association of Automation around $650 billion per year is incurred due to unplanned downtime. Further, Thailand which uses robotic technology for preventive detection is a huge support to serve the need of various sectors such as the auto industry, housing Japanese auto manufacturing.
Blockchain technology also plays an essential role in fintech, due to their higher demand in Singapore and Thailand. Cisco’s Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (CCX) is focussing on extending their operations related to intelligence, research and security incident response capabilities across Asia-Pacific.
The CCX consist of a new Cisco Talos threat intelligence headquarters and Cisco Security Operations Center that would collaborate with the government, industry, and universities to enhance the cybersecurity at the national level thereby developing regional talents.
As per the research conducted by Cisco 2018 Asia Pacific Security Capabilities Benchmark, it was revealed that “Cyber threats are growing in terms of financial impact and the landscape of cyber-attacks in Thailand has changed, from IT infrastructure to operational technologies. Companies in Thailand nearly always address legitimate cyber threat alerts. Companies in Asia-Pacific receive up to 10,000 threats a day, or six threats are received every minute. More than 5,000 threats a day are received by 69% of the companies surveyed. “
From the past few years, Cisco has been putting down his efforts to develop blockchain technology. In 2017, the firm had joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) which was the world’s major open-source blockchain initiative started in July 2017.
In March last year, Cisco had filed a copyright with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to secure the specified process of confidential group communications based on blockchain technology. The copyright had purportedly been entered to address the general issues faced by messaging groups:
It stated, “How group membership is established, communicated, updated, and secured from unauthorized tampering are common problems for which a construct is not available that can be effective in the context of dynamic, decentralized, and self-organizing group.”
At the beginning of this month, Fudan University, the topmost universities in China, had opened a blockchain research center within its campus. The center would focus on conducting research on blockchain technology along with delivering adequate training services.
