Advances brought about by the industrial IoT will go beyond manufacturing, says IBM, which proclaims the next economic revolution.
The 1700s and 1800s saw the industrial revolution taking place and the 1960s through to the 2000’s saw a technological revolution. Combine these two types of revolution and you get the industrial IoT (IIoT), which IBM proclaims to be the next economic revolution. “The introduction of IoT technologies into manufacturing and large, industrial scale machinery, is fostering a new economy nurtured by these technologies,” IBM’s Liza Cooper writes in a blog post. “… These advances go beyond just manufacturing and will spread into farming, city planning, energy management, and more. This expansion will create a boom of technological, economic, and global benefits. It is predicted that this growth will be comparable to the industrial revolution,” she added. Globally, the total IoT revenue opportunity is expected to grow from $750 billion in 2015 to $3 trillion in 2025, according to a recent, unrelated, forecast by Machina Research.
The economic shift expected by IBM will be brought about by two factors in particular: the decreasing cost of sensor technology and the development and deployment of long-range wireless technology. GE estimates that the size of industrial IoT will be between $10 trillion and $15 trillion by 2030. This can be compared to USA’s estimated GDP of $24.8 trillion in 2030. Because it will increase productivity, industrial IoT will drive up average income with an estimated $13,000 gain on GDP per capita in the U.S. in 2030. “This movement has been sparked by the low cost of sensors, and the reliability of long-range wireless technology. These innovations make it possible for sensors to be implemented in all scales of equipment,” wrote Liza Cooper.
Now, while long-range technology is indeed growing, short-range IoT solutions are however forecast to continue to dominate the IoT market going forward. According to Machina Research, 71 percent of today’s total IoT connections are using a short range technology, like WiFi, Zigbee, or in-building PLC. By 2025 that figure will have grown to 72 percent. The reason behind this is simply that the bulk of today’s IoT market consists of consumer electronics, building security and building automation, which all mostly use short-range applications. Machina Research predicts that by 2025, 11 percent of IoT connections will however use Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) connections such as Sigfox, LoRa and LTE-NB1.
IIoT News Recap: Zurich discounts insurance premium for connected alarm buyers; Google’s self-driving car project’s CTO quits; Oracle launches IoT cloud service
Smart Home: Zurich discounts insurance premium for connected alarm buyers
Insurance firm Zurich is to start offering a discount on monthly insurance fees to UK customers using a connected alarm made by Cocoon, SC Magazine reports. Cocoon’s connected alarm uses machine learning and sound wave detection and is accessible via a smartphone. New or renewing Zurich UK customers will be eligible for a ten percent discount on home insurance upon purchase of a Cocoon alarm and will get £50 off when purchasing both at the same time, Cocoon announced. “This is an exciting time to be partnering with such a pioneering business”, said Helen Jales, head of innovation at Zurich.
Autonomous driving: Google’s self-driving car project’s CTO quits
Three key executives at Google’s self-driving car project have recently quit, among them the project’s CTO Chris Urmsom, BGR reports. “Now, 1.8 million miles of autonomous driving later, I’ve decided the time is right to step down and find my next adventure. Today will be my last day on the project as CTO. After leading our cars through the human equivalent of 150 years of driving and helping our project make the leap from pure research to developing a product that we hope someday anyone will be able to use, I am ready for a fresh challenge,” Chris Urmson wrote in a post on Medium. “I have every confidence that the mission is in capable hands. There are many other problems or products this talented group of people could work on, but they’ve chosen self-driving cars because they understand the impact their work can have on making our roads safer and bringing everyday destinations within reach for millions of people. I will be cheering along and following their progress.”
Cloud: Oracle launches IoT cloud service
Oracle announced in a blog post that Oracle IoT Cloud Service, a secure and scalable platform for IoT applications deployment, is now available. “This new offering allows customers to gain new data-driven insights and drive actions from IoT by connecting, analyzing and integrating device data into business processes and applications like remote equipment monitoring and asset tracking,” Oracle stated.
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