Canonical announces collaboration with DFI and PIONIX

The global transition towards electric vehicles (EVs) marks a major shift in the ongoing efforts against climate change and towards sustainable energy solutions. With EV sales skyrocketing to 14 million units in 2023, the demand for efficient and reliable EV charging infrastructure has never been more pressing. Addressing this need requires innovation, collaboration, and the use of cutting-edge technology. We are thrilled to announce a step forward in this mission: Canonical has collaborated with DFI and PIONIX to build an open source charging station software stack, which will be showcased at the Canonical booth at the upcoming IAA Transportation 2024 in September in Hanover.

EVerest: the open source breakthrough in EV charging

EVerest, an open source software framework developed by PIONIX and contributed to the Linux Foundation (LF Energy) in 2022, is at the heart of this collaboration. Designed to provide a modular and customisable software stack for Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE), EVerest facilitates seamless communication between various stakeholders in the EV charging process, complying with standards like ISO 15118 and OCPP. It also optimises power grids and cloud backends by monitoring local energy generation, battery state of charge (SoC), and adjacent chargers.

“We started EVerest to become the go-to open source charging station software stack. By collaborating with Canonical, we’ve taken another step towards this goal,” says Dr. Marco Möller, CEO and Co-Founder of PIONIX. “We both share a common goal: To provide best-in-class enterprise products and services, based on open source technologies.”

Canonical’s contribution: EVerest as a snap

Canonical has developed a snap for EVerest, ensuring it fits seamlessly on top of Ubuntu and any Linux distribution running snapd. By running on top of Ubuntu Core, this snap can be quickly and securely deployed at scale on large EV charging infrastructures. The snap packaging system guarantees that software updates and deployments are efficiently performed, simplifying EVSE manufacturers’ processes and maintenance.

“We are very excited to collaborate with DFI and PIONIX” says Bertrand Boisseau, Automotive Sector Lead at Canonical. “By creating a snap for EVerest, we are upholding our commitment to providing robust, secure, and scalable solutions for rapidly evolving EV charging infrastructure. DFI’s adoption of Ubuntu for their EVSE software stack demonstrates the transformative impact of open source in automotive”.

DFI: leading the charge with advanced EVSE solutions

DFI, a leading manufacturer of embedded computing solutions and Canonical’s partner since 2020, addresses the need for a secure, efficient operating system by integrating Ubuntu. This partnership ensures that EVSE equipment benefits from regular security updates, enhanced performance, and seamless OTA Updates.

The EVSE solution, built on the DFI workload platform with the Intel® Arc™ A380 GPU, supports EV charging software and large language model (LLM) services based on the Mistral 7B model. This setup consolidates multiple workloads across Ubuntu Pro, Windows, Linux, and Android, each dedicated to specific functions like EV charging, digital signage, payment transactions, LLM services, and interactive kiosks, all running on virtual machines powered by the 13th Gen Intel Core Processor. This multifunctional approach ensures versatility and power to meet diverse customer needs.

“Based on this innovative approach, cooperation with Canonical became a natural choice. Ubuntu Core is the perfect operating system, offering best-in-class security, seamless hardware compatibility, easy over-the-air (OTA) updates, and the possibility of future collaboration with other independent software vendors (ISVs). In AI/AIOT (artificial intelligence of things) related applications, in addition to EV, DFI can provide appropriate hardware solutions for automated and unmanned service applications,” said Jarry Chang, Product Center General Manager at DFI.

Join us at IAA Transportation 2024

We invite you to be a part of this first-of-its-kind collaboration at IAA Transportation 2024. Visit our booth E36 in hall 12 to experience a live EVerest demo of our EVSE solution powered by Ubuntu Core. This demo will present the seamless integration, robust performance, and future-ready capabilities of our combined technologies.

DFI, PIONIX and Canonical are excited to power up a sustainable and efficient electric mobility future. 

Join us at IAA Transportation 2024 to explore how we are optimising EV charging. Reserve your slot now to check out the demo at the event.

Stay tuned for more updates and insights as we continue to innovate and lead in the EV charging ecosystem.

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About DFI

DFI is the world’s leading brand in embedded motherboards and industrial computers. With its innovative design and premium quality management system, DFI’s industrial-grade edge AI solutions enable customers to optimise their equipment and ensure high reliability, long-term life cycle, and 24/7 durability in a breadth of markets including Industry Automation, Medical, Gaming, Transportation, Energy, mission-critical, and intelligent retail.

About PIONIX

PIONIX is the leading pioneer in open source software for EV charging and initiated the open source project EVerest. With BaseCamp, PIONIX offers an enterprise-ready, subscription-based operating system for EV chargers, based on EVerest.

About Canonical

Canonical, the publisher of Ubuntu, provides open source security, support and services. Our portfolio covers critical systems, from the smallest devices to the largest clouds, from the kernel to containers, from databases to AI. With customers that include top tech brands, emerging startups, governments and home users, Canonical delivers trusted open source for everyone. 
Learn more at https://canonical.com/