LONDON — Eighteen vendors and organizations have signed a cooperation agreement to form a European edge computing consortium, which aims to create a standard reference architecture and technology stack that can be deployed across smart manufacturing, other industrial IoT applications, and network operators.

Edge computing is increasingly becoming important to addressing security and latency issues in many connected platforms, whether for industry or for connected vehicles; enables processing at the edge of the network close to “things” or the source of data; and integrates core capabilities of the network, computing and storage devices, and applications. The edge intelligence provided also helps meet key requirements such as digital agility, connectivity, real-time services, data optimization, application intelligence, security, and privacy protection.

The Edge Computing Consortium Europe (ECCE) was announced last week with a view to providing a comprehensive edge computing industry cooperation platform. The goals of the initiative include the specification of a reference architecture model for edge computing (ECCE RAMEC), the development of reference technology stacks (ECCE edge nodes), the identification of gaps and recommendation of best practices by evaluating approaches within multiple scenarios (ECCE Pathfinders), and the synchronization with related initiatives/standardization organizations and the promotion of the results.