Gartner, Inc., a world leader in technology research and advice, announces the study the key strategic trends in Internet of Things (IoT) technology that will drive digital business innovation through 2023. The predictions are in the global study “Top Strategic IoT Trends and Technologies Through 2023”.
"The IoT will continue to offer new opportunities for innovation in digital business over the next decade and new possibilities will be opened up by new or improved technologies," says Nick Jones, vice president of research at Gartner, warning that "executives who master innovative IoT trends will have the opportunity to lead digital innovation in their business.”
Companies must work to ensure they have the skills and partners needed to support key IoT trends and emerging technologies. According to Gartner, IT leaders will be responsible for three times more endpoints in 2023 than the number of devices in their organizations today.
In this context, Gartner announces the 10 most strategic IoT technologies and trends that will allow companies to generate new revenue streams and new business models:
1 - Artificial intelligence (IA) – Gartner predicts that 14.2 billion connected devices will be in use in 2019. This total will reach 25 billion devices by 2021, producing an increasingly immense volume of information. "Data is the fuel that powers the Internet of Things, and the ability of organizations to create value from that information base is what will define their long-term success," says Jones. "Artificial Intelligence will be applied to a wide range of IoT information, including video, still images, speech, network traffic activity and sensor data." According to the analyst, the Artificial Intelligence technology landscape is complex and will continue to be so until 2023, with many IT vendors investing heavily in the development of Artificial Intelligence and services based on intelligent platforms. Despite this complexity, it will be possible to achieve good results with these technologies in a wide range of IoT situations. As a result, CIOs (Chief Executive Officers) should adopt tools and skills in their organizations to exploit Artificial Intelligence in their IoT strategy.
2 – Social, legal and ethical IoT – As the IoT matures and becomes widely adopted, a huge range of social, legal and ethical issues will grow in importance. These points include data ownership and the inferences made from it, including algorithmic bias, privacy, and compliance with new laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR). "Successfully deploying an IoT solution requires it to be not only technically effective, but also socially acceptable," said Jones. “CIOs should therefore educate themselves and their employees on this and consider forming groups, such as Ethics Councils, to review corporate strategies. CIOs should also consider having key algorithms and AI systems reviewed by outside consultants to identify potential biases.”
3 – The Value of Information (Infonomics) and Data Transmission – Gartner research on IoT projects shows that 35% of respondents were selling or planning to sell data collected by their products and services in the past year. The theory of infonomics takes this data monetization further by placing information as a strategic business asset to be recorded in company accounts. By 2023, the buying and selling of IoT data will become an essential part of many smart and connected systems. CIOs must educate their organizations about the risks and opportunities related to data trading to define the IT policies necessary to guide all their operations in this area.
4 – The Shift from Smart Edge Network to Smart Mesh Architecture – The shift from centralized and Cloud architectures to Edge Computing frameworks is in full swing because of the Internet of Things. However, this is not the end point, as the set of layers associated with the Edge Computing architecture will evolve into an even more unstructured format, composed of a huge variety of devices and services connected in a dynamic mesh. With Edge Computing, we will have more flexible, intelligent and responsive IoT systems, albeit often at the expense of additional complexities. CIOs must prepare for the impact of fabric architectures on IT infrastructure, skills and delivery.
5 – IoT Governance – With the continued expansion of the Internet of Things, the need for a governance structure that ensures proper behavior in creating, storing, using and deleting information related to IoT projects will become increasingly important. Governance ranges from simple technical tasks such as device audits and firmware updates to more complex issues such as controlling devices and using the information generated by them. CIOs must take on the role of educating their organizations on the importance of IT Governance and, in some cases, investing in professionals and technologies that help them manage IT.
6 – Sensor innovation – The sensor market will evolve continuously until 2023. New sensors will allow an even wider range of situations and events to be detected. Current sensors will drop in price to become more affordable (or packaged in new ways to support new applications), and new algorithms will emerge to extract and deduce more information from current sensor technologies. CIOs must ensure that their teams are monitoring the transformation of these components to identify what new developments can help generate opportunities and innovate for the business.
7 – More Reliable Hardware and Operating System – Gartner research invariably shows that safety is the area of greatest technical concern for organizations deploying IoT systems. This is because companies often have no control over the origin and nature of the programs and equipment being used in IoT initiatives. "However, by 2023, we expect to see the deployment of hardware and software combinations that together create more reliable and secure IoT environments," says the analyst. "Gartner advises CIOs to collaborate with top digital security executives to ensure the entire team participates in decisions surrounding the purchase of IoT devices and embedded operating systems."
8 – New User Experience for IoT – A user experience of IoT (UX) will cover a vast list of technologies and design techniques. It will be driven by four factors: new sensors, new algorithms, new experience and context architectures, and new discoverable social experiences. With an increasing number of interactions taking place with devices that don't have screens and keyboards, organizations' UX designers will be forced to use new technologies and adopt new perspectives if they want to create positive experiences for users while protecting their interests from customers.
9 – Silicon Chip Innovation – “Currently, most IoT device endpoints use conventional processor chips, with low-power ARM architectures, which are particularly popular. However, traditional instruction sets and memory architectures are not suitable for all the tasks these items need to perform,” says Jones. "For example, the performance of deep neural networks (DNNs) is often limited by memory bandwidth rather than processing power." By 2023, it is expected that new generations of chips can reduce the power consumption required to run a DNN, enabling new edge computing architectures and neural functions built into low-power IoT terminals. This will support the inclusion of new features, such as integrated data analysis with sensors and speech recognition, in low-cost, battery-powered devices. CIOs are advised to take note of this trend, as the new chips will allow for new embedded AI functions, which in turn will give organizations the opportunity to create highly innovative products and services.
10 – New Wireless Network Technologies for IoT – IoT networking involves balancing a set of competing requirements such as endpoint cost, power consumption, bandwidth, latency, connection density, operating cost , quality of service and connection frequency range. Currently, no network technology uniquely optimizes all of this, but new IoT networking technologies will provide CIOs with more choice and flexibility. In particular, they should explore 5G, the next generation of low-Earth-orbit satellites, and backscatter networks.
"The IoT will continue to offer new opportunities for innovation in digital business over the next decade and new possibilities will be opened up by new or improved technologies," says Nick Jones, vice president of research at Gartner, warning that "executives who master innovative IoT trends will have the opportunity to lead digital innovation in their business.”
Companies must work to ensure they have the skills and partners needed to support key IoT trends and emerging technologies. According to Gartner, IT leaders will be responsible for three times more endpoints in 2023 than the number of devices in their organizations today.
In this context, Gartner announces the 10 most strategic IoT technologies and trends that will allow companies to generate new revenue streams and new business models:
1 - Artificial intelligence (IA) – Gartner predicts that 14.2 billion connected devices will be in use in 2019. This total will reach 25 billion devices by 2021, producing an increasingly immense volume of information. "Data is the fuel that powers the Internet of Things, and the ability of organizations to create value from that information base is what will define their long-term success," says Jones. "Artificial Intelligence will be applied to a wide range of IoT information, including video, still images, speech, network traffic activity and sensor data." According to the analyst, the Artificial Intelligence technology landscape is complex and will continue to be so until 2023, with many IT vendors investing heavily in the development of Artificial Intelligence and services based on intelligent platforms. Despite this complexity, it will be possible to achieve good results with these technologies in a wide range of IoT situations. As a result, CIOs (Chief Executive Officers) should adopt tools and skills in their organizations to exploit Artificial Intelligence in their IoT strategy.
2 – Social, legal and ethical IoT – As the IoT matures and becomes widely adopted, a huge range of social, legal and ethical issues will grow in importance. These points include data ownership and the inferences made from it, including algorithmic bias, privacy, and compliance with new laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR). "Successfully deploying an IoT solution requires it to be not only technically effective, but also socially acceptable," said Jones. “CIOs should therefore educate themselves and their employees on this and consider forming groups, such as Ethics Councils, to review corporate strategies. CIOs should also consider having key algorithms and AI systems reviewed by outside consultants to identify potential biases.”
3 – The Value of Information (Infonomics) and Data Transmission – Gartner research on IoT projects shows that 35% of respondents were selling or planning to sell data collected by their products and services in the past year. The theory of infonomics takes this data monetization further by placing information as a strategic business asset to be recorded in company accounts. By 2023, the buying and selling of IoT data will become an essential part of many smart and connected systems. CIOs must educate their organizations about the risks and opportunities related to data trading to define the IT policies necessary to guide all their operations in this area.
4 – The Shift from Smart Edge Network to Smart Mesh Architecture – The shift from centralized and Cloud architectures to Edge Computing frameworks is in full swing because of the Internet of Things. However, this is not the end point, as the set of layers associated with the Edge Computing architecture will evolve into an even more unstructured format, composed of a huge variety of devices and services connected in a dynamic mesh. With Edge Computing, we will have more flexible, intelligent and responsive IoT systems, albeit often at the expense of additional complexities. CIOs must prepare for the impact of fabric architectures on IT infrastructure, skills and delivery.
5 – IoT Governance – With the continued expansion of the Internet of Things, the need for a governance structure that ensures proper behavior in creating, storing, using and deleting information related to IoT projects will become increasingly important. Governance ranges from simple technical tasks such as device audits and firmware updates to more complex issues such as controlling devices and using the information generated by them. CIOs must take on the role of educating their organizations on the importance of IT Governance and, in some cases, investing in professionals and technologies that help them manage IT.
6 – Sensor innovation – The sensor market will evolve continuously until 2023. New sensors will allow an even wider range of situations and events to be detected. Current sensors will drop in price to become more affordable (or packaged in new ways to support new applications), and new algorithms will emerge to extract and deduce more information from current sensor technologies. CIOs must ensure that their teams are monitoring the transformation of these components to identify what new developments can help generate opportunities and innovate for the business.
7 – More Reliable Hardware and Operating System – Gartner research invariably shows that safety is the area of greatest technical concern for organizations deploying IoT systems. This is because companies often have no control over the origin and nature of the programs and equipment being used in IoT initiatives. "However, by 2023, we expect to see the deployment of hardware and software combinations that together create more reliable and secure IoT environments," says the analyst. "Gartner advises CIOs to collaborate with top digital security executives to ensure the entire team participates in decisions surrounding the purchase of IoT devices and embedded operating systems."
8 – New User Experience for IoT – A user experience of IoT (UX) will cover a vast list of technologies and design techniques. It will be driven by four factors: new sensors, new algorithms, new experience and context architectures, and new discoverable social experiences. With an increasing number of interactions taking place with devices that don't have screens and keyboards, organizations' UX designers will be forced to use new technologies and adopt new perspectives if they want to create positive experiences for users while protecting their interests from customers.
9 – Silicon Chip Innovation – “Currently, most IoT device endpoints use conventional processor chips, with low-power ARM architectures, which are particularly popular. However, traditional instruction sets and memory architectures are not suitable for all the tasks these items need to perform,” says Jones. "For example, the performance of deep neural networks (DNNs) is often limited by memory bandwidth rather than processing power." By 2023, it is expected that new generations of chips can reduce the power consumption required to run a DNN, enabling new edge computing architectures and neural functions built into low-power IoT terminals. This will support the inclusion of new features, such as integrated data analysis with sensors and speech recognition, in low-cost, battery-powered devices. CIOs are advised to take note of this trend, as the new chips will allow for new embedded AI functions, which in turn will give organizations the opportunity to create highly innovative products and services.
10 – New Wireless Network Technologies for IoT – IoT networking involves balancing a set of competing requirements such as endpoint cost, power consumption, bandwidth, latency, connection density, operating cost , quality of service and connection frequency range. Currently, no network technology uniquely optimizes all of this, but new IoT networking technologies will provide CIOs with more choice and flexibility. In particular, they should explore 5G, the next generation of low-Earth-orbit satellites, and backscatter networks.
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