The European Commission is setting up a £1.8bn pool to
fund a 10-yearresearch and development projectinto
embedded or "pervasive" computing in the hopes of capturing a
larger slice of a market growing at 14% a year and already worth
£45bn.
The deal cleared by the European Commission last Friday brings
together 10 member states under the
Artemis
umbrella. In a statement, the European Commission said computers
are increasingly embedded in consumer goods such as cars, credit
cards, passports, planes, phones, factories, washing machines and
televisions, among others. It said that by 2010, more than 35% of a
car's value would be found in embedded computers.
It said more than four billion embedded processors were sold
last year. The global market was worth £45bn and had an annual
growth rate of 14%. "This is the commercial opportunity to be
addressed by the £1.8bn of research invested during the next 10
years," the statement said.
Viviane Reding, EU commissioner for information society and
media, said, "More and more, useful applications affecting the
daily life of consumers rely on such embedded systems. Also, the
new Airbus includes many embedded technologies from fly-by-wire to
cabin pressure control."
To speed up access to the money, the EC is changing the way it
funds research. The commission and member states will set up a
public-private partnership to pool their public funding with
universities and industry, including many innovative SMEs. This
will consolidate many highly fragmented research initiatives under
the new "open" Artemis consortium.
Artemis presently includes Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Estonia,
Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands,
Austria, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Finland, Sweden and the
United Kingdom. Industry members include ABB AB Corporate Research,
AIRBUS, Ardaco, AS, AVL List GmbH, Critical Software SA, Daimler
AG, Ericsson AB, Finmeccanica-Società per azioni, Hellenic,
Aerospace Industry SA, Infineon Technologies AG, Inspire AG, Nokia
Corporation, NXP, Philips Electronics, Siemens AG, ST
Microelectronics, Telelogic AB and Thales Corporate.