Johnson Controls, headquartered in Cork, Ireland, recently completed the acquisition of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based FogHorn. Johnson Controls is, of course, a prominent company in the category of smart, healthy and sustainable buildings. Meanwhile, FogHorn is a well-known developer of Edge AI software for industrial and commercial Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.
“Value is increasingly being created by applying intelligence at the edge-device level to create real-time, secure, actionable insights,” Vijay Sankaran, CTO, Johnson Controls, says. He refers to pervasively integrating Foghorn’s Edge AI throughout the company’s OpenBlue solution portfolio. By doing so, he continues, “…we are accelerating the pace towards our vision of smart, autonomous buildings….” Those buildings, he adds, continuously learn, adapt and automatically respond to the needs of the environment and of people.
The number of sensors and the amount of data in buildings continues to grow exponentially. Thus, we see increasingly pronounced value in processing data and applying intelligence at the edge. That is to say, without having to send data to the cloud.
Integrating Johnson Controls, Foghorn Leadership
Sastry Malladi, who served as CTO at Foghorn, will join Johnson Controls. Malladi reports to Sankaran as vice president, OpenBlue Artificial Intelligence.
“We are thrilled to bring the Foghorn team and Edge AI capabilities to Johnson Controls and OpenBlue,” Malladi enthuses. “By combining our respective strengths, Johnson Controls can make an even bigger impact on continuing to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges….” Malladi offers decarbonization, sustainability and energy efficiency, improved indoor air quality, and smart, secure buildings as key examples.
The parties to this transaction did not disclose its financial terms. However, we can report that FogHorn’s technical team will integrate into the OpenBlue Solutions organization. Moreover, FogHorn’s headquarters in Sunnyvale will function as an “AI Hub” for Johnson Controls.
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