IOTA Foundation, the developer of blockless distributed ledger protocol IOTA Tangle, has partnered up with the International Transportation Innovation Center (ITIC) to build a global alliance of smart mobility testbeds.
IOTA and ITIC are working together to build a global alliance of smart mobility testbeds, according to an announcement made on the latter’s website.
IOTA’s top priority is to create a worldwide community of developers building smart mobility applications utilizing its open source protocol and IOTA data market platform to enable a shared automated and sustainable smart mobility ecosystem with the highest possible level of safety and security. IOTA also aims to build energy related applications and supply chain management related applications.
The International Transportation Innovation Center (ITIC) is a non-profit organization headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina, USA. The organization is focused on the development of a global network of open and closed testbeds to incubate and validate AI-based sustainable smart mobility services using virtual, augmented and physical testing methods.
Both publicly and privately operated testbeds will be able to participate in the IOTA-ITIC global alliance of smart mobility testbeds.
The first live demonstrations at public events as an outcome of the IOTA-ITIC partnership can be expected in 2018 with a larger group of joint partner companies.
“The ITIC Smart Mobility Testbed Alliance will serve as a proving ground for new business models and new technology approaches with IOTA distributed ledgers,” IOTA Co-Founder Dominik Schiener said.
“The IOTA Foundation is setting up a comprehensive Automotive and Transportation Working Group; this collaboration between The IOTA Foundation and the ITIC on the Smart Mobility Testbed Alliance represents the first official move towards this important goal. It’s important for us that to stress that this is the first stage of a large vision that will unfold throughout 2018,” IOTA Co-Founder David Sønstebø explained.
Last month, IOTA partnered with Microsoft, Accenture, Fujitsu, Deutsche Telekom, Bosch, PwC, and other high-profile companies to launch the first publicly accessible data marketplace for the Internet of Things (IoT).
IOTA’s native cryptocurrency, MIOTA, edged up 463% in 2017, from $0.65 on June 13 to $3.66 on December 31. MIOTA reached an ATH of $5.51 on December 21. At press time, MIOTA has a total market cap of over $10.3 billion, changing hands at $3.73, down 6.96% on the day against the dollar.