Source:
Imperial College London
Imperial College London’s partnership with Huawei is designed to explore and utilise new technologies across business, government and society, writes Ian Walmsley
The coronavirus crisis has caused us to make a number of rapid and profound changes to the ways in which we work together across our universities, in order to for us to continue to educate, research and innovate.
In particular, it has brought to the fore the critical nature of our information infrastructure to enable us to function as individuals, as families, as organisations and as a society.
We could not have done this without digital wireless technology, advanced networking and computing. These technologies underpin the next generation of robust and resilient hardware, software and applications for secure transmission of information that more than ever will be essential for our future.
At Imperial College London, one of our strategic themes is creating a “Smart Society”. It focuses on new ways of thinking about, manipulating and using information, and the impact that new technologies have on shaping the way we work.
Our aim is to be at the cutting edge of discovery and technology in this area. In order to do that we seek partners who can help us deliver broader and deeper impact, while working in an open and transparent way.
We have a wide range of major strategic partners from industry and business with which we have built relationships. These have yielded new ideas, new technologies and applications, reaching across business, commerce, government and civil society.
Huawei, with whom we have worked for many years, is one of these partners. Its expertise in wireless technology will help us explore how the digital world will evolve and enable us to create the future in this area.
Through new collaborations, Imperial will use Huawei’s technology to help our Business School simulate online trading for its sustainable business educational programmes. We will also partner with Huawei to provide new technological platforms such as 5G for our student entrepreneurs and startups, and our joint expertise in AI will be the focus of a new innovation lab.
Such partnerships help us realise our ambition both to discover more about the world and to deliver transformative impact for the benefit of society on a global scale.
Ian Walmsley is provost at Imperial College London.
