How crucial will be the role of IoT in developing Smart Cities?
IBM’s pioneering work in smarter planet and smart cities was based on practical applications of IoT in the enterprise sector and led to a broad set of solutions, ranging from water management to optimising space and equipment in facilities to alleviate traffic congestion. IBM leads in enterprise IoT implementations that securely combine and analyse data to uncover new actionable insights. With new industry-specific cloud data services combined with our Bluemix digital innovation platform for developers, IBM will build on its IoT expertise to help clients and partners accelerate adoption of IoT to benefit city services, and constituents (private and commercial).
What are the most important data challenges posed by the Internet of Things (IoT)?
In our interactions with clients, we often start with the insights they want to achieve, and work backwards from there to discuss types and forms of analytics, and then to the data required – machine data, weather data, geospatial, etc. If we know what that desired outcome is, issues of data management, security, and how to capture data can be effectively addressed.
What challenges do IoT and the massive amount of data being generated by these devices present?
A variety of challenges exist, but we see most as manageable such as connectivity (method, power requirements), data storage and management (historical, streaming, correlation, etc.), and aggregating the ‘right’ data in support of desired analytic driven insights. Now, one of the most interesting challenges that we face with IoT is security. As apps converse with devices such as appliances, vehicles, transformers and, pumps – it is necessary that these interactions must be secure. IoT requires trust and it also raises an important question – how is a device’s identity managed and validated through its life cycle? On April 9, 2015, IBM announced an expansion of its partnership with Texas Instruments. Together, we are collaborating on a secure, cloud based provisioning and device life cycle management service for IoT devices. We will open to appropriate standards bodies for broad industry adoption.
Earlier this year IBM has announced to invest $ 3 billion to establish a new IoT unit. What are the areas/ verticals that the company is planning to target with this investment?
IBM will focus on the following areas with this investment:
– Design and deliver new industry vertical solutions to industrial clients by bringing together engineering and operation solutions.
– Accelerate the development of IoT PaaS on IBM Bluemix to extend capabilities of connected devices to collect, secure and generate real-time, actionable insights from data.
– Enhance engineering and asset management solutions with analytics to support mission critical IoT development and its processes.
– Extend our ecosystem of strategic IoT partners to deliver secure solutions that seamless connects the “things” to IBM IoT cloud services.
– Engage in new research initiatives with major universities to advance IoT technologies.
How can developing economies like India make best use of IoT and other emerging technologies to achieve exponential growth?
IBM IoT enables the manufacturers and operators in industrial companies to transform how they work and how they deliver value through the application of the Internet of Things. We do that by :
– Delivering a world class, secure global IoT Cloud PaaS for rapid IoT app creation and data collection,
– Leveraging analytics tools and solutions that utilize data to support faster innovation, lower operating costs, disrupt supply chains, and create new business models.
– Extending our Engineering and Operations solutions to support closed loop product development and predictive operations
– Providing comprehensive industry specific solutions that demonstrate our expertise and industry depth.
In a nutshell, concerted momentum is accelerating in India in the IoT sector. A range of business models are emerging (such as Capex – Opex mix for industry solutions), along with scalability solutions for hardware products and, global and local applications of IoT platforms. Startups are already showing the way for IoT innovators, and large industry players and academic institutes are also teaming up. With the next link coming from government, IoT may well be poised as a powerful growth sector and driver in India.
According to you, which of the vertical/ market segment can be the major adopters of IoT by 2020?
All industries are and will benefit from IoT. I see the manufacturing industries, discrete and process, transportation, energy & utilities, retail, and the domain of buildings (campuses, airports, etc.), as major adopters.
