2021 End of the Year Update
2022 is framing up to be the genesis of a historical national buildout that will be larger than the 1960s Interstate Highways.
2021 has been a very productive year for the Autonomy Institute. We have had over 1,400 meetings with government, industry, and academic partners. The Autonomy Institute, with the support of partners, has been participating in a number of weekly calls working to develop Public-Private Partnerships for the installation and management of Intelligent Infrastructure.
We are very appreciative of all the time and energy provided by the community and know 2022 is going to be a big year for the nation. I trust we will continue to see the continued support and leadership we need to drive our nation forward.
We are not expecting everyone to read this entire newsletter, but we hope you will jump to the sections you care about. We plan to use this format in 2022 to provide updates. Main Sections: Intelligent Infrastructure; Digital Twins; Data Exchanges; Projects; Labs & Corridors; Industry 4.0 Coalition; Intelligent Infrastructure Ecosystem; Events; and Policy & Standards.
Path to Commerce will continue to gain momentum in 2022.
- Multiple deployments of Intelligent Infrastructure (civil, defense, & private developments)
- Working with partners to finalize many of the I3 Intelligent Infrastructure Standards (hardware, software, & services)
- Accelerate deployment and testing of Intelligent Infrastructure ( Government, universities, and research organizations)
- Creating the 2023 National Intelligent Infrastructure Commerce Act
In memory of Norm Anderson, Founder, and CEO of CG/LA. Norm worked for decades to help educate the nation on the critical priority of infrastructure, including Intelligent Infrastructure. His mission will continue on with all his supporters and his book “Vision”. CG/LA Leadership is pushing forward his legacy.
INTELLIGENT INFRASTRUCTURE
Industry 4.0 Requires Intelligent Infrastructure
Industry 4.0 will spawn the largest infrastructure buildout in our nation’s history and is the equivalent of the interstate highways of the 1960s. https://youtu.be/vwJbFHUkcE4
Billions of dollars are being allocated to Integrated Intelligent Infrastructure (I3) that includes Public Infrastructure Network Nodes (PINN). PINNs will be the key to Industry 4.0 and resilient transportation infrastructure. PINNs support the five key national priorities — NextG, Rural Broadband, Assured Position Navigation & Timing, AI, and Autonomy. Overview of National Priorities.
Time to eliminate the digital divide and accelerate into the 21st century with jobs, economic growth, and stronger more resilient communities.
Americans are ready for a grand reimagining of and reinvestment in our infrastructure to revitalize the transportation, water, energy, and broadband systems that power our economy. Brookings Metro American Infrastructure Vision — Brookings Report; Public Infrastructure Funds Rockefeller Foundation
Over $300 Billion in Capital is being applied to the challenge:
- Private Infrastructure Investors
- City & State Projects including Broadband programs
- $1.2 Trillion Federal Infrastructure Program
Joint Office of Energy and Transportation created: https://www.energy.gov/articles/charged-ready-go
Intelligent Infrastructure:
- Requires Leadership.
- Is a First Order Priority
- Will require a national program: https://youtu.be/vwJbFHUkcE4
- Moving past dirt roads and toward a 2023 Intelligent Infrastructure Commerce Act.
DIGITAL TWINS
Digital Twins are the Foundation of Intelligent Infrastructure.
There are a growing number of cities looking to adopt a digital twin, including the City of Austin with over three dozen departments, partners, and agencies engaged.
Digital twins are a virtual representation of a city, port, highway, vehicle, or object, constructed only by a digital database. A digital twin could vary in representation from simple localization metadata, to high fidelity visual and dynamic modeling. This means twins can evolve over time, becoming more and more representative of their real-world counterparts. Realtime updates, state changes, and abnormality alerts are all simplistic use cases for digital twins.
The Digital Twin has been gaining a great deal of support, OMNIVERSE Developments:
- City of Austin — OMNIVERSE Austin
- Greenport Advanced Air Mobility
- Texas Military Department Camp Mabry
- Port of Corpus Christi
DATA EXCHANGES
Data is the New Oil and the PINN is the Wellhead.
Data is the new oil which means that it’s going to be the place where the Nation-States compete. Data will become part of a new transaction architecture that allows data to be effectively orchestrated across many organizations, with the ability to support economic exchange.
Data Exchanges will support billion-dollar highways with a dozen different revenue sources, digital revenue from a digital ecosystem. Data Exchanges will also provide data sovereignty that will enable local decision-making on data governance.
The video below highlights the leadership of Ohio developing an intelligent corridor that will be supported by multiple revenue streams.
PROJECTS
The Austin Omniverse project will be the first city-scale deployment within the United States and is comparable in size to Virtual Singapore.
City digital twins will improve planning activities such as public engagement, scenario planning, and zoning and development. They will also assist planners in reaching local climate resilience, economic development, and housing goals (just to name a few). There are dozens of partners involved with Omniverse Austin and the Digital Twin Consortium will be creating a Showcase that includes the Intelligent Infrastructure.
More on Omniverse Austin
Intelligent & Autonomous Cities.
The City of Austin is on the path to becoming the City of the Future. The City launched a program for Infrastructure for Advanced Services (IAS) that is focused on addressing many of the City Council Resolutions. These include smart mobility, eliminating the digital divide, electrifying mobility, adopting smart city applications, and advancing city resilience.
The City is a key leader in the Autonomy Institute Coalition working to establish the reference architecture and policy for Intelligent Infrastructure.
Lead participation from the City includes:
- Innovation Department
- Community Technology and Telecommunications Commission
- Downtown Austin Alliance Innovation District
- City of Austin Mayor supporting city leadership with Intelligent Infrastructure for community impact
The focus is to support a diverse group of communities; Colony Park, Tarrytown, Georgian Acres, Highland, and the Innovation District downtown.
Intelligent & Autonomous Communities.
We saw the engagement of a number of residential and commercial properties ready to deploy Intelligent Infrastructure. They see the impact of the Intelligent Infrastructure providing advanced community services. We are working with a number of communities, but are also in early talks with several of the “City of the Future” initiatives in the United States and in international markets.
One of Austin’s innovative developers is taking the lead with designing an Intelligent and Autonomous Community. The goal is to design the Intelligent Infrastructure into the plans along with roads, water, electric, communications, delivery, . . .
Overview of a Community of the Future.
Nations first Advanced Air Mobility Region
Greenport Innovation & Business Campus is building an airport from the ground up for Advanced Air Mobility. This will be supporting advanced research and development as well as testing and experimentation of commercial systems. We look forward to the collaboration between government agencies and all the industry partners involved. Greenport is also moving forward with microgrid projects that include 200MW of stored energy and hydrogen production.
The Greenport Innovation Campus will support the early adoption of Advanced Air Mobility, drone inspection, drone delivery, autonomous freight, automated systems, the vital Intelligent Infrastructure that will support endless Industry 4.0 solutions. There are now 6 Advanced Air Mobility companies engaged and the current plans include over 200,000 sq ft. of facility buildout.
Intelligent, Autonomous, and Electrified Corridors.
We are working on the design, installation, activation, and operations of PINN clusters in several regions. Some of the top locations include Texas (SH-130, I-10); East coast (I-85 & I-95); Ohio (Smart 33), California (I-680). These will include installation down highways and other easements to support Intelligent, Autonomous, and Electrified Corridors.
There are dozens of industry partners engaged and providing the critical hardware, software, and services to see the nation accelerate adoptions. We see the leadership of TxETRA also helping to accelerate the electrification of mobility across the state of Texas.
The 21st-Century Infrastructure: Intelligent Corridor
LABS & CORRIDORS
Establishing 24/7 Operational R&D Corridors
TMD Camp Mabry is supporting the first Intelligent Infrastructure Grid of PINNs. They will help advance the use of intelligent and autonomous systems for protecting our communities and providing resilience in Texas as well as the Nation. The PINNs deployed will support advanced operation and services on the base to improve public safety response. The PINNs will also support accelerated testing and fielding of innovative hardware and software that will support national programs. The base of the Future Intelligent Infrastructure: TMDX Intelligent Infrastructure
Other locations we are supporting for advancing intelligent and autonomous systems forward include Greenport AAM Campus, UT JJ Pickle Campus, CMU Edge Computing & Drone Corridor, Raleigh AERPAW Corridor expansion, and a number of military bases looking to advance NextG programs.
LEADERSHIP
Highlighting some high impact leadership in 2021:
- Night Keyes has worked tirelessly to develop the Public-Private Partnership framework and financial models to ensure faster adoption.
- Patricia Baumhart has been a catalyst for emerging technology and a great accelerator for collaboration between organizations.
- JiNan Glasgow George has helped key partners protect their IP and participate in this quickly growing industry.
- David Bruemmer has helped push the industry forward for over a decade and has an unending passion to see the adoption of robots.
- David Whitley has provided critical guidance that has helped establish public policy and government support.
- Laura Roman has been a marketing genius and is helping to develop stories that connect with people, government, and industry.
- Nehemiah Pitts is the Chairman of the Austin Technology Commission and has been helping to develop a city-wide approach.
- Ted Lehr has been an incredible collaborator for three years and has helped Austin develop the framework for community impact.
AI PARTNERS
We are closing the year with over 160 Industry partners and dozens of government and academia partners. There has been tremendous leadership from partners and has helped develop a national program.
Some of the OV1 partners include NVIDIA, HPE, EdjX, ABOVE, AIM, Aqueti, Resilienx, Truweather, Lattice, and Mavenir.
Read more about how some of the partners are supporting Intelligent Infrastructure Corridors.
INDUSTRY 4.0 COALITION
Three years of collaborating with hundreds of companies and government agencies have led to the development of the Industry 4.0 Coalition. Industry 4.0 will drive the next 100 years of innovation.
The Industry 4.0 Coalition is aligned with the United States DOD Trusted Capital program. The focus is on establishing an investment capital foundation for dual-use technology investments. This is in order to support new technologies, services, and manufacturing operations.
- PURPOSE — Establish “All-Up” Program to Operationalize Robots — The Bold Vision / North Star
- CAPITAL — Establish TRUSTED CAPITAL FUND; Dual-Use — Billions from private investors; Support Public-Private Partnerships to deploy Intelligent Infrastructure
- DEPLOY — Establish Autonomous Prime with T&E Operational Zones; “All-Up — 24/7” Labs, Grids, Corridors to Operationalize Robots
Intelligent Infrastructure can be compared to three past national programs; Interstate Highways, GPS, and the Internet.
https://autonomy.institute/industry-4-0-coalition/
INTELLIGENT INFRASTRUCTURE
Intelligent Infrastructure ecosystem development.
As with any new developing industry, it takes an ecosystem of organizations to establish the vision and framework to accelerate growth. Ziff Davis, Gartner, COMDEX, and others helped develop the digital age. Other industries had similar ecosystems to accelerate and sustain the growing industry. These include the Detroit Auto Show and the growing list of robotics and autonomous platform shows.
We are working with TOPIO, Connectiv, CG/LA, and YBusiness being the strategic partners that will lead the Intelligent Infrastructure industry. This will stimulate decades of growth and will develop into a show larger than CES.
We are working to select supporting partners for consulting, capital, and standards. Consulting (i.e. Deloitte, Booz Allen, Accenture, PWC, BCG), capital (i.e. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, CreditSuisse, JP Morgan, Brookfield, Macquarie, CPP), standards (IEEE, SAE, EPRI, ANSI, ORAN), and robotics.
We have been having weekly meetings to develop a coalition and will be announcing details soon. We welcome any thoughts, leadership, and participation.
Topio is a thought leader for the future of technology industries including Edge, AI, and Intelligent Infrastructure. They will be hosting the world’s first Intelligent Infrastructure conference at the Fairmont Austin on March 28 & 29th. This important event addresses one of the key opportunities of our time: how to digitize national infrastructure to prepare for the next generation of growth. Learn more about the future: https://www.intelligentinfra.com
Intelligent Infrastructure will be the foundation for the next generation of our supply chain. Manifest is the world’s leading conference advancing the “Future of Logistics”. January 25–27, 2022 in Las Vegas for the premiere gathering of industry leaders, innovators, and investors in a showcase of the cutting edge of Logistics and Supply Chain. https://manife.st/
The CG/LA Strategic Infrastructure Performance Institute focuses on long-term infrastructure thinking, particularly around (1) strategic projects, (2) technological innovation, and (3) financial innovation. https://www.sipinst.org/
CG/LAs mission is to bring strategic infrastructure to people and communities around the world — so that everyone has greater opportunities and better lives. https://www.cg-la.com/
Learn more about the future of our national infrastructure, VISION by Norm Andersons. https://www.cg-la.com/visions-book
YTEXAS is hosting the State of the Future Summit at the Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas on September 30th, 2022. On the field, experience innovative advances occurring across Texas: manufacturing using 3D printing and advanced robotics, our race to space exploration, the energy and digital transformation, autonomous vehicles by road and air, and many more.
2022 YTexas State of the Future Summit: https://ytexas.com/2022summit/
EVENTS
2020 and 2021 were difficult years for in-person activities, but we had a few great events that highlighted Industry 4.0 companies and technologies.
We are hopeful that 2022 will see dozens of events that will occur at a growing number of locations. We are already planning several Advanced Air Mobility, Intelligent Infrastructure, and other advanced robotics companies. If you know of any company that is helping to advance the mission of Intelligent Infrastructure and autonomous systems let us know.
POLICY & STANDARDS
Standards will accelerate adoption.
Standards are what drove the Interstate Highways, the Internet, and the technology industry forward for decades. Intelligent Infrastructure will also rely heavily upon both policy and standards to develop a strong ecosystem of innovative companies.
Some of the 2021 Activities:
- Submitted an $80 million federal grant for the deployment of PINNs in five cities to support advanced research and development.
- We have developed a growing number of Intelligent Infrastructure standards
- Developed a strong list of private infrastructure investors with billions in capital
- We will be using USDOT CARMA, VOICES, and NASA DRF to establish a base environment for the initial deployments
- Autonomy Institute is part of the Texas Urban Air Mobility Committee
- Developed a national avigation easement legislation framework
- Autonomy Institute is part of the Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Task Force
- Supported UT Austin on the NASA ULI grant
- Established relationships with almost two dozen universities on the development of Intelligent Infrastructure Grids & Corridors.
We have seen a number of standards developed over the last three years and it will be exciting to see them deployed and impact our daily lives. Cybersecurity and shared operational views provided by digital twins will accelerate the adoption of systems within communities and municipalities.
We will also see strong participation and investment from the industry to work with universities and research organizations to advance the industry and accelerate our innovation cycles.
We see the leadership from DOD R&E and T&E helping to accelerate our national programs.
To the Future of Intelligent Infrastructure!
Learn More about the Autonomy Institute
Who is the Autonomy Institute
A Sematech for Autonomy and AI at the edge. Autonomy Institute(501c3) is accelerating the “Path to Commerce” for intelligent and autonomous systems. This includes Digital Infrastructure, Autonomy, and AI at the edge. It is a government, industry, academia and public alliance to create the policies, markets, jobs, and community benefits of autonomy, starting with the Intelligent and Autonomous Infrastructure that is the equivalent of the Eisenhower Interstate Highways.
Though Sematech didn’t’ need infrastructure, the Autonomy Institute does. There is a tsunami of technology coming to cities and it needs leadership to assure it meets community needs. That’s where the Public-Private Partnership (P3) comes in to deploy Public Infrastructure Network Nodes (PINN). The PINN will be as critical to a city as roads, power, telecommunications, and water infrastructure.
