Oracle Industry Lab in Chicago enables development of solutions for multiple industries

The Oracle Industry Lab in Chicago, which provides customers in multiple industries the opportunity to test new technologies, recently opened. It is the first such facility for the IT giant that plans to add labs in England and Australia later this year. The lab provides customers a hands-on environment to develop new ideas and create solutions with technology from Oracle and more than 30 industry partners, according to a news release.

The new 30,000 sf facility located in Deerfield, Ill., supported by Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, will first focus on the energy and water, construction and engineering, communications, and manufacturing industries. Customers can test robot dogs, artificial intelligence, and drones at the lab to apply to some of their most difficult challenges.

“The core technology used in the world’s most essential industries doesn’t run in an office, it runs on a construction site, in the utility operations center, on the manufacturing floor,” said Mike Sicilia, executive vice president of Oracle’s vertical industries. “The lab brings these scenarios to life so that collectively, customers, partners, and Oracle can create solutions to fuel opportunity and solve the really tough problems these industries are facing.”

Utilities applications

Water, gas, and electric utilities are facing unprecedented regulatory, environmental, and customer-driven demands. The lab provides simulated environments including a connected neighborhood and smart studio apartment for customers to experiment with technologies such as sensors to help relieve stress on the electric grid, drones and augmented reality to improve safety and efficiency in field work, and AI and behavioral science to guide households to be more energy efficient.

Communications applications

5G is an opportunity to add new, more reliable services and products to consumers, and also drive new revenue streams in the enterprise. The technology, for example, can power robotic surgeries and smart factories. Lab visitors can experiment with how cloud native communications technologies are enabling automation and scaling to meet expected growth in 5G subscribers, connected devices, and demand for rapid service innovation. They can explore how service providers can partner with other industries to co-create B2B2X (business-to-business-to-X) offers and business models.

Construction and Engineering applications

Oracle and its partners will explore the power of a connected ecosystem, leveraging technologies such as visual progress monitoring, sensor-based tracking, digital twins, autonomous laser scanning, augmented reality, IoT, and more. These offerings will enable visitors to test and validate new solutions to inform predictive decision-making, reduce inefficiency, mitigate risk, and foster better outcomes.

Manufacturing applications

A global pandemic, extreme supply chain and labor shortages, and increasing customer expectations are forcing manufacturers to adapt faster than ever. Companies must digitize their businesses and increase connectivity throughout their operations by embedding technologies such as IoT, AI, augmented reality, digital twins, predictive analytics, and factory automation.

Owner and/or developer: Oracle
Design architect: Nelson Worldwide
Architect of record: Nelson Worldwide
MEP engineer: Thorson Baker
Structural engineer: Thorson Baker
General contractor/construction manager: Pepper Construction

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