Vodafone has opened an Edge Innovation Lab in the Salford area of Manchester in north-west England. The lab will showcase Multi-access Edge Compute capabilities, and offer organisations the chance to trial new ideas with support from Vodafone experts. The lab will support growth of digital industries in the Greater Manchester area, a historic manufacturing region of the UK, and create a centre of excellence for real-time mobile applications.

Software developers and innovators in the Greater Manchester region will have access to next generation network technologies, including Multi-access Edge Compute (MEC), in the earliest stages of development. According to Vodafone, this will create a global centre of excellence for real-time mobile applications in the region, supporting the growth of digitally led businesses and industries in the area, as well as in the rest of the UK.

Use cases enabled by MEC include autonomous operations in factories, immersive augmented and virtual reality, remote medicine, cloud gaming, autonomous vehicles and drone transport.

Vodafone has deployed Dedicated MEC servers at the Edge Innovation Hub and has launched a Distributed MEC zone in the Manchester area in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Vodafone will also showcase Mixed Reality and Visual Inspection services at the lab.

Vodafone has partnered with Kyndryl to offer customers professional and managed services for dedicated MEC as well as wider cloud-managed services.

The lab builds on Vodafone’s four-year partnership with HOST in Salford’s MediaCity, where the lab will be located. HOST combines skills, innovation and start-up growth services all under one roof, with an inclusive community that supports businesses to learn, grow and succeed. It focuses on key sectors including data science, AI, cyber and immersive technologies so individuals and businesses can explore the pioneering opportunities available in these areas. HOST is also home to the UK’s Unity Centre of Excellence and Skills City’s digital Skills Bootcamps.

Alongside the launch of the lab, Vodafone is also running the Edge Innovation Programme 2.0. Using dedicated and distributed MEC technologies, the Edge Innovation Programme 2.0 aims to encourage creation of new advanced services, products and applications. Participants of the trial will be able to ‘try before you buy’ MEC services and will also receive a voucher for further discounts on additional services following trials and proof-of-concepts, as well as work alongside Vodafone network and technology experts to bring ideas to life.

Nick Gliddon, UK Business Director, Vodafone, said: “MEC enables the creation of digital services and platforms that would otherwise be impossible to deliver. The lab offers innovators the opportunity to experiment with next-generation technologies and bring to life ideas that could revolutionise the way we do business and deliver public services. It will place Manchester and the surrounding region at the centre of the next stage of digital revolution.”

Tosca Colangeli, President, Kyndryl UK&I, said: “We are excited, as part of our strategic partnership with Vodafone, to be supporting the Edge Innovation Lab in Salford and to use the facility as inspiration and co-creation for our joint customer engagements. We expect edge technologies to increasingly become an enabler of business outcomes; allowing end users (and machines) and industries including manufacturing and energy, to reap the benefits of traditional cloud computing while gaining advantages such as reduced data latency, better data autonomy and enhanced security.”

Mo Isap, CEO of IN4 Group, operator of HOST, said: “Our mission is to support and develop use cases in innovation with start-ups, scale-ups and established businesses, and this is the missing piece of our jigsaw, which connects with our Unity immersive and AWS cloud infrastructures, our Cyber Security Operations Centre, and now we have Edge computing capabilities. This becomes a unique environment for any company looking to progress and accelerate its innovation in the region.”

Vodafone has already worked with more than 20 companies to trial new MEC services, including:

• Aurrigo: Cambridge-based SME Aurrigo used MEC and Vodafone’s 4G/5G network to improve the safety and performance of its driverless vehicles, as well as enhancing security as data is not exposed to the public internet.
• Sportable: The company’s ball embedded and wearable IOT technology captures every movement on the pitch, delivering real-time insights to fans, coaches, officials and broadcasters.
• InterDigital: MEC can better support applications like ‘zero-defect’ manufacturing, to unlock huge benefits for the Industry 4.0 and smart factories.
• Keyless: Keyless is a privacy-first biometric authentication solution that makes the authentication processes for digital payments faster. MEC makes real-time multi-factor authentication a reality for all end-users, so businesses and consumers can embrace biometric technology.