NEC and Arm developing secure IoT solutions for smart cities

NEC and Arm Limited announced a collaboration to drive the development of secure IoT solutions for smart cities using artificial intelligence. NEC will adopt the Arm Platform Security Architecture, an industry standard framework for building securely connected devices, which includes the concept of threat modeling, architectural guidelines and implementation resources that reduce the cost, complexity, and risk associated with IoT security.

“The pace of deployment of IoT devices is growing rapidly, and Smart Cities will be an important use case for AI-enabled IoT,” said Chet Babla, vice president solutions, IoT Device IP, Arm. “Ensuring that IoT devices are secure is non-negotiable, and why Arm is working with partners such as NEC to shift the economics of security by providing the common framework that PSA enables.”

NEC also reports it is scheduled to unveil the development of a box-type accelerator, a specialized device featuring real-time facial recognition that will be securely managed and provisioned by Arm Pelion Device Management. The accelerator will be equipped with the Arm Cortex-A53 processor and will accelerate the device’s facial recognition process and enable faster analytics by offloading the analytics workload carried out on servers or the cloud.

“We expect the new accelerator to promote further adoption of face recognition throughout many areas, including the public safety, entertainment and transportation fields, as it contributes to the security and convenience of consumers worldwide,” said Naoki Hashitani, SVP, NEC Corporation.

NEC has been developing a smart city project leveraging Arm technology in Shirahama, Japan and plans to begin a proof of concept hospitality project with smart check-in and smart shopping features using facial authentication later this year. The project includes facial recognition with the new accelerator and is expected to be a reference model for expansion into a wide range of new areas.

Earlier this month NEC established a Digital Trust Business Strategy Division as a dedicated organization to create and promote a strategy of Human Rights by Design, which can be applied to the adoption of artificial intelligence and biometrics to ensure a positive impact on human rights, such as privacy.

Article Topics

artificial intelligence  |  biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  IoT  |  NEC  |  pilot project