Cisco announces US$15 million Internet of Everything hub for Australia

Vendor's eighth IoE hub globally will have locations in Sydney, Perth

Cisco's Chuck Robbins explains just how big the Internet of Everything is.

Cisco's Chuck Robbins explains just how big the Internet of Everything is.

Cisco will open a US$15 million 'Internet of Everything' innovation centre in Australia later this year, the networking vendor announced at its annual Cisco Live event in Melbourne.

Cisco announced two locations for the Internet of Everything (IoE) Centre, in Sydney at financial research firm Sirca and in Perth at Curtin University. Cisco plans to invest US$15 million over five years into the centre.

The Australian innovation centre is Cisco’s eighth globally, joining other IoE hubs located in Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, Songdo, Berlin, Barcelona, Tokyo and London.

“There is a culture of innovation here [in Australia],” Cisco senior vice-president, Chuck Robbins, said in a keynote this morning.

“There is this belief in leveraging technology to lead and if any region of the world will take advantage of this transition and look at what’s possible and see how to leverage all of this change to drive tremendous innovation, it’s Australia and New Zealand.”

The centres aim to spur Internet of Things innovation by bringing together Cisco customers, industry partners, startups, application developers, accelerators, universities and government bodies and universities.

Participants will develop proof of concepts and do rapid prototyping. The Centre will include dedicated space to demonstrate real-life applications.

Initial partners for the Centre are Curtin University, Woodside Energy and Sirca, which is owned by 40 universities across Australia and New Zealand.

Last year, Cisco announced a partnership with the city of Adelaide to build an IoT hub.

Sirca chief strategy advisor Ros Harvey said the Internet of Things could help solve important world issues.

“By 2050 we will need to double the amount of food produced to feed the world’s growing population whilst at the same time having access to less land, half the amount of fresh water, increasingly expensive fertilizer and unprecedented changes in climate,” said Harvey.

“Technology, particularly the IoT, is seen as a potential solution to this urgent challenge. As a member of the Centre, our aim is to combine Australia’s strengths in agriculture with technology innovation, to make Australia the epicenter for IoT R&D in agriculture.”

The IoE will create $19 trillion of economic value globally over the next decade, including $74 billion in Australia alone, Robbins said. Also, 40 per cent of the world’s data will be created by sensors in the year 2020, he said.

“We believe that every country, city, company, everyone will become a digital country, company, city.”

Adam Bender flew to Melbourne as a guest of Cisco.

Adam Bender covers telco and enterprise tech issues for Computerworld and is the author of dystopian sci-fi novels We, The Watched and Divided We Fall. Follow him on Twitter: @WatchAdam

Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU, or take part in the Computerworld conversation on LinkedIn: Computerworld Australia

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Tags NetworkingciscoCurtin UniversityInternet of ThingsCisco Liveinternet of everythingIoTSIRCAinnovation centreIoEInternet of Everything innovation centre

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