WUXI, China, June 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- iSoftStone Group, the leading software and IT services provider for digital transformation in China, Venturous Group, China’s first Citytech™ Group, and Wuxi National Hi-Tech District have formed a new joint venture company, SwanLink (Jiangsu) Technology Development Ltd. (“SwanLink”). SwanLink will focus on developing commercial distribution versions of OpenHarmony-based IoT operating systems and applications to enable seamless connections between smart devices to achieve the objective of a fully-connected world.
In China, there were approximately 8.8 billion Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices as of 2021, and this number continues to grow steadily and is expected to reach 15.6 billion by 2025, according to iResearch Global Group. However, the data collected by the IoT devices are often not used to their fullest potential. Few of these systems and applications can be integrated because of software or hardware incompatibility. This creates a market opportunity for solution providers that can integrate technology components and achieve large-scale standardization of operating systems across numerous IoT devices.
To support the rapid development of homegrown Chinese operating systems, in 2020 Huawei decided to donate the source code of HarmonyOS to China’s OpenAtom Foundation in the hope of other companies utilising and modifying the open-source code to their needs. OpenHarmony is an intelligent open-source IoT distributed operating system that is applicable across all smart devices and in all scenarios of a fully-connected world. It aims to promote the development of the Internet of Everything (IoE).
Headquartered in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, SwanLink originates from a business division of iSoftStone Group, which has been a long-time key partner of Huawei, an important player of the OpenHarmony ecosystem, and a strategic partner of Venturous Group. With extensive and valuable first-hand experiences in OpenHarmony-based software development, SwanLink is one of Huawei’s first OpenHarmony ecosystem partners, for which Huawei will provide enabling services to speed up commercial distribution versions of OpenHarmony operating systems and applications. By partnering with Wuxi National Hi-Tech District and Venturous Group for resources, capital and business development support, iSoftStone Group has ensured that SwanLink has a very solid basis for future success.
Mr Benson Tam, Founder & CEO of Venturous Group, said: “OpenHarmony is an IoT distributed operating system ahead of the current global standard. It is a critical part of the required infrastructure to drive China’s future digital transformation and an important building block for Smart Cities. As China’s first Citytech group, Venturous is extremely excited about this opportunity to launch SwanLink together with our partners iSoftStone Group and Wuxi, which has been crowned the ‘Smart IoT City’.”
Mr Tianwen Liu, Founder, Chairman & CEO of iSoftStone Group, agreed: “The strategic partnership with Wuxi National Hi-Tech District is an important step to further innovate and develop the OpenHarmony ecosystem and China’s own operating systems. In the future, iSoftStone will leverage the agglomeration advantage of Wuxi’s IoT industry and take full advantage of its capabilities and experiences in the digital industry. Furthermore, SwanLink will actively carry out research and development of software and operating systems based on OpenHarmony, contributing to the construction of ‘Digital China’ together with our partners.”
To conclude, Mr Rongguo Cui, Party Secretary of Wuxi National Hi-Tech District and Secretary of Xinwu District Community, said: “The establishment of SwanLink’s headquarters in Wuxi National Hi-Tech District will inject new momentum into the digital economy of Wuxi. The district government will also provide full support for SwanLink to accelerate the development of the 2.0 era of Wuxi’s IoT.”
– END –
