Qualcomm's Smart Campus Wins Digital Innovation Award
The San Diego pilot program includes office and research space, labs, outdoor areas and parking structures and shows how our technologies can be more broadly applied to smart cities of the future.
Qualcomm has served as the essential accelerator to the mobile device market for more than 30 years. Our mobile processors and modems have been “under the hood” of thousands of flagship mobile device models. Now, the need for mobile connectivity is expanding beyond — far beyond — smartphones and tablets. The Internet of Things (IoT) has expanded the market for mobile connectivity. And one of the main benefactors of the IoT revolution are Smart Cities.
Recently, one of our efforts to spur the advance of Smart Cities, a smart campus pilot program located on one of our San Diego campuses, was recognized with a Digital Innovation (Digie) award for Most Intelligent Corporate Campus at IBcon 2016.
IBcon recognizes “companies, real estate projects, technologies and people that have gone above and beyond to positively impact our industry through the use of technology, automation and innovation.” Qualcomm was selected for the inventive use of wireless technologies to create an Industrial Internet of Things.
The Qualcomm smart campus is a “living” test bed covering office and research space, labs, outdoor areas and parking structures across six buildings and nearly 1 million square feet while taking full advantage of our expertise in lower power processing, edge computing as well as 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, Small Cells and sensors. The campus provides invaluable insights and efficiencies that can be scaled up for the rest of our real estate assets, as well as cities. Examples of how our campus and its technologies can help cities be more efficient and sustainable include:
- Using connectivity technologies to collect real-time data from our water, power heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems through the use of smart sensors
- Equipping employee shuttles with off-the-shelf camera solutions optimized for edge processing with image recognition algorithms to determine real-time occupancy via a mobile app
- Collecting trash using a new system that combines a connected solar powered trash compactor with an algorithm for optimal pick-up routing and notification of waste status
Qualcomm is also enabling “processing at the edge,” which means we’re putting more processing power and intelligence where data is transferred and received to ensure that information is secure, timely and dynamic. This access to real-time situational data allows us to better manage assets and resources, helping to reach our goal of increasing efficiency by 10% to 15%, achieving operational savings of 8% to 10%, and reducing absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions from our global operations by 30% by 2025, compared to a 2014 baseline.
“Our approach to smart city development includes reusing existing systems such as mobile broadband networks, re-imagining existing city infrastructure and increasing efficiency by transitioning from single-purpose to multipurpose devices,” says Kiva Allgood, VP, Business Development, Smart Cities & IoT. “We’re doing this by fostering interoperability and allowing data to flow freely across various technologies within city functions such as lighting, transportation and infrastructure.”
Learn more about Qualcomm’s Smart Cities initiatives here.
