LANXESS Opens APAC Application Development Center in Shanghai

Shanghai – June 18, 2021 – German specialty chemicals company LANXESS held the opening ceremony for its APAC Application Development Center (AADC) at Shanghai Chemical Industry Park (SCIP) on June 18. The new center substantially increases the company’s local innovation capabilities. Initially, it combines the research activities of the Business Units Polymer Additives (PLA), Lubricant Additives (LAB), and Urethane Systems (URE). The AADC is the first project put into operation at SCIP’s new InnoGreen Shanghai International Chemical New Materials Innovation Center.

Ming Cheng Chien, President of LANXESS APAC Region, Thomas Triller, Acting Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Shanghai, Shousheng Li, Chairman of China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation (CPCIF), Jing Ma, Director of Shanghai Chemical Industry Park Administration Commission (SCIPAC), and Dr. Anika van Aaken, Head of the AADC, were among those attending the ceremony. LANXESS Chairman of the Board of Management Matthias Zachert and Board Member Dr. Anno Borkowsky joined online.

“We are proud of being the first company to settle at the InnoGreen Shanghai International Chemical New Materials Innovation Center. The AADC will enhance our local innovation and strengthen our confidence in the Chinese market, and ultimately serve our customers in the entire Asia-Pacific region,” said Ming Cheng Chien, President of LANXESS Asia Pacific.

“Today marks an important milestone in our history in China. Our operations here are central to our global strategy, and we are grateful for the long-term partnerships we have forged in this country,” 

Matthias Zachert said in his speech. “China is a nation of opportunity, and we are always seeking new ways to support and participate in its growth and prosperity.”

“This Application Development Center was built to strengthen our starting position to address several strategically vital markets,” Dr. Anno Borkowsky said in his speech. “And being here only one year after the groundbreaking, we have done so with significant speed. With the AADC, we are taking another vital step towards being able to benefit from the growth potential in the world's largest chemical market.”

The establishment of the AADC also underlines LANXESS’ confidence in China’s growth potential. As the world’s largest chemical market, China already accounts for 40 percent of global chemical sales, and the figure will approach 50 percent by 2030.

To meet the growing market demand, LANXESS has increased its presence in China and enhanced its market position in the entire Asia-Pacific region through continuous investment. In 2018, the company launched a new regional setup in the Asia Pacific region, covering Greater China, Japan, South Korea and the ASEAN countries to promote synergies between countries and business units.

In September 2019, LANXESS signed an MOU with SCIP to set up an integrated site as a new base for sustainable growth in China. Two months later, the company announced its plan to establish a comprehensive application development center to strengthen its innovation capabilities in China and the Asia-Pacific region. This came as the need for localized product grades increased due to shifting demand toward value added products in China. In March 2020, LANXESS announced that the AADC would be located at SCIP. The delivery of the AADC building took place in December 2020.

Thanks to the continuous presence in China, the region was the only market with strong demand in the Asia-Pacific region during the pandemic. The sales in Greater China in 2020 accounted for 14 percent of LANXESS’ total global sales.

About LANXESS
LANXESS is a leading specialty chemicals company with sales of EUR 6.1 billion in 2020. The company currently has about 14,200 employees in 33 countries. The core business of LANXESS is the development, manufacturing and marketing of chemical intermediates, additives, specialty chemicals and plastics. LANXESS is listed in the leading sustainability indices Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI World and Europe) and FTSE4Good.

LANXESS China
On January 31, 2005, the company was initially listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and LANXESS Chemical (China) Co., Ltd. officially started operations. LANXESS now has 13 subsidiaries, 6 R&D centers and 7 production sites with around 1,200 employees in Greater China. LANXESS works closely with its local partners to develop market-oriented solutions that meet local market needs.

HANDCRAFTED BENTLEY INTERIOR INSPIRES BESPOKE LUXURY YACHT DESIGN

• Bentley Design Services help create luxurious yacht interior
• Sumptuous cabin complements owner’s Continental GT V8 coupe
• One-off project between Bentley Motors and Contest Yachts
• Matching Linen and Hotspur hides feature throughout the interior of the car and the bespoke yacht, with signature Bentley diamond-in-diamond stitching
• 18-metre Contest 59 CS built by Contest Yachts in The Netherlands for a customer
• Bentley Continental GT designed, engineered and built in Great Britain

(Crewe, 9 June 2021) Bentley Motors has collaborated on the creation of a truly unique yacht interior to match the exquisite cabin design of a customer’s Continental GT V8 coupe.

The bespoke nautical trim was created by craftspeople at Bentley Design Services, which specialises in creating customised solutions for the brand’s clients, working side-by-side with premium Dutch yacht builder, Contest Yachts.

The luxurious cabin of the yacht owner’s Continental GT V8 coupe already incorporated Hotspur red leather, combined with contrasting Linen beige hide – styling which Bentley was then able to help recreate inside the new 18-metre, Contest 59 CS yacht.

The interior panelling in the ocean-going yacht also showcases Bentley’s signature diamond-in-diamond stitching. This unique quilting requires exactly 712 stitches per diamond and a high level of skill to produce on a specially-commissioned machine, exclusive to Bentley Motors. Outside, the deep blue hull of the Contest yacht perfectly complements the Light Sapphire finish of the owner’s Continental GT V8 Coupe.

Brett Boydell, Head of Bentley Design Collaborations at Bentley Motors, said: “This project was an opportunity for Bentley Design Services to showcase some of their many skills in a truly unique collaboration. Bentley cars embrace qualities of craftsmanship and styling that are only achieved at the highest level of nautical design.”

 

Arjen Conijn, CEO and Co-Owner of Contest Yachts, said: "Our family has been building premium class sailing and motor yachts for more than 60 years. We are well-known for our thorough approach to customisation, which allows us to fulfill the expectations and preferences of every customer. This project is the ultimate example of this approach - working with Bentley to turn a customer’s dream into reality."

Designed, engineered and built in Great Britain, the Bentley Continental GT V8 is the world’s finest Grand Tourer, combining unparalleled levels of luxury with cutting-edge technology and performance.

Aruba Introduces Industry’s First Enterprise-Grade Wi-Fi 6E Solution

New Wi-Fi 6E Access Points Leverage 6 GHz Band to Deliver Greater Performance, Lower Latency, and Faster Data Rates to Support High-Bandwidth Applications and Use Cases

Thailand, 14 June 2021 – Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company (NYSE: HPE), today announced the market’s first enterprise-grade Wi-Fi 6E solution set – the 630 Series of campus access points (APs), starting with the AP-635*. The latest innovation in Wi-Fi technology, Wi-Fi 6E refers to Wi-Fi devices that operate in the 6 GHz band, which was – in the largest expansion of Wi-Fi capacity in nearly two decades – opened up in April 2020 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for unlicensed use in the United States. Opening the 6 GHz band more than doubles the amount of RF spectrum available for Wi-Fi use, allowing for less congested airwaves, broader channels, and higher-speed connections and enabling a range of innovations across industries. Since the FCC decision to open the 6 GHz band, 39 additional countries that are home to over 1.3 billion people have opened the 6 GHz unlicensed band for Wi-Fi 6E. (Source: Wi-Fi Alliance)

Currently, as organizations increase their use of bandwidth-hungry video, cope with increasing numbers of client and IoT devices connecting to their networks, and speed up their transition to cloud, the demand for Wi-Fi continues to rise. As a result, wireless networks are becoming oversubscribed, throttling application performance. This frustrates all network users by negatively impacting the user experience, reduces productivity, puts digital initiatives at risk, and stifles innovation.

“With connectivity demands growing exponentially, Wi-Fi 6E can take advantage of up to seven, superwide 160 MHz channels and uncongested bandwidth in the 6 GHz band to deliver unprecedented multi-gigabit and low latency connectivity,” said Kevin Robinson, SVP of Marketing at Wi-Fi Alliance. “Wi-Fi 6E will spur enhanced innovations and exciting new services. Wi-Fi Alliance is pleased to see longtime member Aruba bringing Wi-Fi 6E solutions to market that will help organizations better support critical activities like videoconferencing, telemedicine, and distance learning.”

According to leading market intelligence research firm 650 Group, Wi-Fi 6E will see rapid adoption in the next couple of years, with over 350M devices entering the market in 2022 that support 6 GHz. 650 Group expects over 200% unit growth of Wi-Fi 6E enterprise APs in 2022.

The new Aruba Wi-Fi 6E solutions are part of Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform), the industry’s first AI-powered, cloud-native platform designed to unify, automate, and secure the Edge. Able to predict and resolve problems at the network edge before they happen, Aruba ESP’s foundation is built on AIOps, Zero trust network security, and a unified campus to branch infrastructure to deliver an automated, all-in-one platform that continuously analyzes data across domains, tracks SLAs, identifies anomalies, and self-optimizes, while seeing and securing unknown devices on the network.

With Aruba’s new Wi-Fi 6E offerings, organizations can take advantage of the increased capacity, wider channels in 6 GHz, and significantly reduced signal interference with 3.9 Gbps maximum aggregate throughput to support high bandwidth, low latency services and applications such as high definition video, next-generation unified communications, augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR), IoT, and cloud. Additionally, with a new ultra tri-band filtering capability, which minimizes interference between the 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands, organizations can truly maximize use of the new spectrum.

“As we progress in our digital transformation, we are continually adding an increasing number of IoT devices to our network and transitioning to Wi-Fi as our primary network connection rather than Ethernet. We are being asked to support an expanded array of mission-critical, high bandwidth applications that support research as well as hyflex learning and entertainment, like streaming video, video communications, and AR/VR for our students, professors, and staff,” said Mike Ferguson, network manager and enterprise architect at Chapman University. “With Aruba’s Wi-Fi 6E APs, we’re confident that we’ll be able to not just support our short-term needs, but we’ll have room to grow as well, which will keep all of our users happy, increase our competitiveness, and allow us to extend the lifecycle of this network deployment by 50%.”

Aruba 630 Series Access Point Key Features

• Comprehensive tri-band coverage across 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz with 3.9 Gbps maximum aggregate data rate and ultra-triband filtering to minimize interference
• Up to seven 160 MHz channels in 6 GHz to better support low-latency, high bandwidth applications like high-definition video and AR/VR
• Operates on existing IEEE 802.3at standards for PoE power so there is no need to rip and replace existing power supplies
• Advanced security with WPA3 and Enhanced Open to better protect passwords and data
• Flexible failover with two HPE Smart Rate Ethernet ports for 1-2.5 Gbps, offering true hitless failover from one port to another for both data and power
• Application assurance to guarantee stringent application performance for latency sensitive and high bandwidth uses by dynamically allocating and adjusting radio resources
• Cloud, controller, or controllerless operation modes to address campus, branch, and remote deployments

“Consumer appetite for ubiquitous wireless connectivity is limitless, whether at home or traveling the world,” said Mike Kuehn, president at Astronics CSC. “As a leading global provider of advanced technologies for the aerospace and defense industries – including some of the largest major airlines in the world – Aruba’s new Wi-Fi 6E AP gives us the ability to offer compelling and unique solutions that deliver a new, enhanced and more secure wireless experience to our customers.”

“Aruba has two decades of leadership in Wi-Fi innovations, backed by an unwavering commitment to providing our customers with the reliable, fast, high capacity, and secure connectivity they need to pursue and exceed their organizational objectives,” said Chuck Lukaszewski, vice president and wireless chief technology officer at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. “Since 2016 we have helped lead the advocacy effort that has led to the 6 GHz band being opened all over the world. As such, we are extremely proud to be the first vendor to bring enterprise-grade Wi-Fi 6E solutions to market so our customers can take advantage of the huge increase in capacity that 6 GHz delivers.”

Availability
The new Aruba 630 Series APs will be available in calendar third quarter 2021.

Additional Resources

• What is Wi-Fi 6E?
• Blog: Aruba’s Wi-Fi 6E Solution: A Technology View
• Aruba 630 Series AP Data Sheet

*This device has not been authorized as required by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission. This device is not, and may not be, offered for sale or lease, or sold or leased, until authorization is obtained.

About Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, is the global leader in secure, intelligent edge-to-cloud networking solutions that use AI to automate the network, while harnessing data to drive powerful business outcomes. With Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform) and as-a-service options, Aruba takes a cloud-native approach to helping customers meet their connectivity, security, and financial requirements across campus, branch, data center, and remote worker environments, covering all aspects of wired, wireless LAN, and wide area networking (WAN).

To learn more, visit Aruba at www.arubanetworks.com. For real-time news updates, follow Aruba on Twitter and Facebook, and for the latest technical discussions on mobility and Aruba products, visit the Airheads Community at community.arubanetworks.com.

Aruba and Zebra Technologies Deliver Unmatched Visibility into Mobile User Experiences, Application Performance, and Network Operations

Advanced AIOps-Powered Solution Analyzes Roaming Device Performance In Real-time to Enhance Operations, Uptime, and Voice Quality

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company (NYSE: HPE), today announced the availability of an embedded solution for mobile devices that delivers unmatched real-time visibility into roaming user experiences and application performance. Developed with Zebra Technologies, an innovator at the front line of business with solutions and partners that deliver a performance edge, the Aruba User Experience Insight (UXI) AI software agent embedded in Zebra mobile computers analyzes real-time voice and data traffic and proactively flags issues that could affect application, Wi-Fi connectivity, roaming, and voice performance. The early warning provided by Aruba UXI informs remedial actions so that business-critical applications and end user experiences are not impacted. The result is higher up-time, increased productivity, and more expeditious problem remediation.

Today’s announcement builds upon Aruba’s long-standing relationship with Zebra to bring to market innovative, mobile-based technology solutions that address critical operational issues spanning vertical markets. Aruba’s AI-based UXI agents’ network and application testing capabilities work in concert with Zebra’s Worry-Free Wi-Fi Edge Insights™ to expose a device-level view and pre-analyzed insights of the network. Results are displayed on Aruba’s intuitive UXI dashboard.

“Zebra developed WorryFree Wi-Fi Edge Insights to deliver superior device communications and management services,” said Julie Johnson, vice president of Global Product Management and Portfolio for Enterprise Mobile Computing at Zebra Technologies. “WorryFree Wi-Fi Edge Insights will provide businesses with an edge-to-cloud early warning system that can directly enhance productivity, efficiency, and profitability.”

The solution enables IT teams to automate the collection, analysis, and remediation of performance issues in real-time using data observed from the very devices that are being impacted, as simulated or historical data simply cannot provide the same level of accuracy as live data. For example, connectivity and voice performance might vary considerably while standing at floor level, moving on a forklift, or while picking at the top of a storage rack. The combination of Aruba’s UXI agents and Zebra Worry-Free Wi-Fi Edge Insights will expose these differences, enabling IT staff – locally or remotely – to precisely target solutions. The real-time nature of data collection means that even transient events that might otherwise go unnoticed are captured and analyzed.

“As enterprises make the leap to digitally transform, the amount of business-impacting data that has to be analyzed for meaningful insights is growing exponentially,” said Brian Ray, vice president of Engineering at HarborTech Mobility, an Aruba Platinum partner and Zebra PartnerConnect Premier Solutions partner. “Data science has to be leveraged, but it is only as good as the sources from which it draws. Mobile device-generated data is the gold standard for performance and troubleshooting information because it’s coming directly from the source, from the very device that’s impacted by network, service, and application issues.”

The vast amount of data generated by Zebra mobile computers and other IoT machines can be meaningfully collected, analyzed, and acted upon by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI). Aruba pioneered the application of AI to automated network and application performance monitoring. Aruba UXI, a component of Aruba’s AIOps suite, is AI-powered and its Incident Detection feature baselines application performance over time and automatically identifies and alerts when it detects service-impacting changes in behavior. The cloud-based service allows IT to proactively resolve issues before they impact operations, and minimize alert fatigue, often without ever stepping foot on the site being monitored. AIOps runs as a service within Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform), the industry’s first cloud-native platform designed to automate, unify, and secure the Edge.

“COOs are laser focused on improving operational efficiency, reducing downtime, and making the best use of skilled labor,” said Michael Tennefoss, vice president of IoT and Strategic Partnerships at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. “Many of the most vexing problems are transient in nature and extremely challenging to troubleshoot. Capturing real-time information right at the point of impact gives the most insightful view of what’s happening, and best informs how to fix it. And that’s exactly what the combination of Zebra’s new Worry-Free Wi-Fi Edge Insights and Aruba’s UXI accomplishes.”

The Aruba UXI Agent will be available in October of 2021. Target markets include healthcare, hospitality, logistics, and retail applications. For more information, or to participate in the ongoing early access program, please contact your Aruba representative.

Additional Resources:

• Blog: Boost your AIOps IQ with Aruba User Experience Insight
• Blog: Are Traditional Wi-Fi Troubleshooting Mechanisms Giving Your IT Team and Workers Trouble?
• Video: Deploying Aruba UXI on Zebra Devices

About Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, is the global leader in secure, intelligent edge-to-cloud networking solutions that use AI to automate the network, while harnessing data to drive powerful business outcomes. With Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform) and as-a-service options, Aruba takes a cloud-native approach to helping customers meet their connectivity, security, and financial requirements across campus, branch, data center, and remote worker environments, covering all aspects of wired, wireless LAN, and wide area networking (WAN). 

To learn more, visit Aruba at www.arubanetworks.com. For real-time news updates, follow Aruba on Twitter and Facebook, and for the latest technical discussions on mobility and Aruba

How Epic Games Uses Unreal Engine to Power Human-Machine Interface in Electric Vehicles

By Jack Condon, Evangelist and Technical Account Manager at Epic Games Southeast Asia

Thais are becoming more familiar with gaming and electric vehicles (EV), with many e-sports events held across the country, and with the government aiming to turn the country into Southeast Asia's EVs hub within the next decade. But what do these two different sectors have in common, and how important do you think gaming technology is to electric vehicles?

The answer might surprise you, especially as it also involves that other great disruptor of our industry — the roadmap to autonomy.

When General Motors (GM) revealed its new all-electric Hummer, the supplier that was picked for special mention was Epic Games: developer and publisher of Fortnite — one of the world’s most popular online games). Epic’s Unreal Engine real-time graphics platform also powers the Human Machine Interface (HMI) in the new Hummer. Find out how the Hummer utilized the power of Unreal Engine in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrgGP5QJzLk

It would be easy to look at this and see a snappily designed, graphics-rich user interface that’s there to grab attention. And that’s certainly part of why the technology was chosen, with increasingly large screens providing vast, seamless surfaces for the designers’ creativity. But the benefit that GM chose to highlight was more strategic: the ability to quickly develop ways for new systems — in this case electrification — to communicate with the driver.

Gaming technology solves several problems. The first of which is to work out how these new control areas should interact with the vehicle occupants. When you are deciding how to display information about state of charge and energy regeneration, or the location of hazards and the urgency of returning control to the driver, there are no decades of experience to call on. Game engines provide new freedom for designers searching for the most effective (and most engaging) ways to communicate this information, as well as a fast, efficient way to build and test each option to create Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) or support systems in which the driver can drive the vehicle more safely than conventional driving.

“Designers evolve the end product in real time, while engineers get on with their day jobs”

When one is chosen, the traditional development path is for engineers to code the software, leading to an iterative process where designers and ergonomists review the system, and engineers revise the code. Game developers work without these silos, so the best platforms are structured to allow designers to evolve the end-product in real time (design-driven development) quickly and efficiently, while engineers get on with their day jobs. The key features of Unreal Engine’s design-driven development can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGRmH_sFg7s

But it isn’t just about new technologies: there is also the question of communicating brand values when your audience is used to consumer electronics with a much faster product refresh cycle. Stepping into your new car to find comic-book graphics hardly shouts ‘high-tech’.

One of the big German vehicle manufacturers recently committed to moving towards a single, company-wide vehicle model that begins its life with the earliest concepts and evolves seamlessly through engineering to marketing and manufacture — where the exact specification of the customers’ vehicle can be loaded into the HMI. When you glance down to see how your vehicle’s electrical system is harvesting energy as you slowdown, it will be your actual vehicle, in the correct colour and trim, with the wheels you chose. When it rotates, instead of the huge cost of creating motion like a flip blook, the image will be recalculated in real time as it turns, providing designers with total flexibility and superb visual quality.

“A future HMI must be configurable for the individual vehicle, customisable by each occupant and updateable through that vehicle’s life”

Which brings us to the next big step: over the air updates and cloud-based services. The technical roadmap for an HMI is surprisingly critical to the successful adoption not just of new vehicle technologies, but also of new revenue streams.

A mobile phone is the gateway to additional services and personalisation. But, in a vehicle, they can be so much more sophisticated. How about an augmented reality experience that conveys interesting facts and stories about landmarks that are highlighted as you pass?

We’ve mentioned three of the major disruptors — EV, ADAS, and cloud-based services — all of which will contribute more when implemented alongside a new generation of sophisticated HMIs. The clue is in the name: Human-Machine Interface. As vehicle technology and services evolve, the HMI is becoming the most powerful touch point between the products of our industry and our customers, with Unreal Engine helping to accelerate this development.