GE has announced the installation of some of the world’s fastest, high-speed fiber optic lines to support the company’s Industrial Internet initiative.
As a founding member of the Industrial Internet Consortium, GE software scientists and developers created an industry test bed that will transfer data at 100 gigabits per second to support seamless Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications and data transfer across connected control systems, big infrastructure products and manufacturing plants.
Compare this: While a typical Internet connection for home computers can transfer data at speeds of 15 megabits per second, (or the equivalent one full quality, high-definition movie) at a time, the high-speed networking lines installed at GE’s Global Research Center will be able to deliver speeds of 100 gigabits, or 100,000 megabits per second. That’s the equivalent of downloading not one, but more than 6,000 movies at a time.
With the new 100 gigabit lines, GE said in a press statement, industries could instantaneously connect and control machines located thousands of miles away. Through the Industrial Internet, GE was harnessing major advances in software, data analytics and also networking to connect people, data and machines in ways that take product development and services to the next level.
“A software research focus for GE has been to advance the real time connections between large scale systems and to develop sophisticated control systems that increase the performance and efficiency of our products,” said Colin Parris, Vice President, GE Software Research. “These high-speed networking lines enable accelerated data movement and an increase in data volumes within Industrial Internet products and services. This ability will greatly accelerate needed advancements in these areas, and in collaboration with the Industrial Internet Consortium, help advance industry standards.”
Industrial Internet Consortium member Cisco has also contributed expertise to building this project, as well as Internet2, which provides the infrastructure to give the network its national reach, said GE.
“As founding members of the IIC, Cisco and GE are collaboratively working on innovation test beds, reference architectures and standards infrastructure for Industrial Internet applications. GE’s new fiber link and continued test beds are crucial to advancing our efforts around the Internet of Things and to our ability to rapidly generate valuable customer insights through our industry solutions,” said Cisco’s Tony Shakib, Vice President, IoE Vertical Solutions Group.
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