With AI, edge computing and digital twins gaining ground, in 2019, IoT industry will see emerging trends which will set the trajectory of the next phase of transformation. In this article, we list down top key trends that will dominate the IoT landscape.

Cybersecurity in the era of IoT

With the rise in connected devices, combating cyber threats has become a key concern for organisations across India and globally. According to a Deloitte report, security environments are more complex and cybercriminals are more determined than ever. Hence, organizations are utilising security solutions built on stand-alone security tools, resulting in vendor sprawl and ineffective security strategies. Organizations now recognize that the ability to integrate disparate security technologies is the main challenge to achieving an effective security automation architecture. The race is on among leading tech giants to develop robust IoT solutions.

Clash Of Tech Giants

We are all set to see an intensified competition between technology giants such as AWS, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and many others, as comprehensive IoT platforms become the standard. These giants will try to acquire a majority share of the market and will continue to expand their footprint organisations and congregate them by promising a simplified service.While prominent IoT platforms struggle for market share, smaller firms concentrate on corner areas to persist.

The giant vendors narrow their focus on particular use cases and promote their APIs and capabilities for integration with enterprise applications, analytics, and security management, it can be predicted that these trends will continue to excitedly compete for other IoT platforms, in addition to refining their own. In 2019, it is expected each to deliver IoT platform partnership announcements, similar to what industry has seen with Microsoft and PTC, to expand and improve the use cases they assist. It is expected that  Google might be more competitive, too, not by acquisition but by courting related partnerships.

5G leads to faster connectivity

5G will have a transformational impact on the adoption of IoT as the network’s speed is prophesied to unleash the IoT capabilities. The technology is already one of the most anticipated tech trends in the industry and will lead in a new era for IoT. They will promote an increasingly interconnected world that will drive IoT innovation further. The technology allows collecting, maintaining, and examining data almost in real-time. 5G will also significantly expand the IoT market into areas where time and bandwidth speed are crucial, unhitching unrealized revenue and potential. “5G networks will usher in a new era for IoT, supporting an increasingly interconnected world that will drive IoT innovation further,” claims DataArt.

Edge Computing will gain prominence

In future, devices will display dominant enabling local data processing and AI capabilities. It will diminish data transfers volumes and cloud dependencies and will give more flexibility and coordination for business. Edge computing will significantly influence those industries where critical action is needed based on complex real-time data analysis and where cloud connectivity may be limited

The cloud, meanwhile, is revealing its limits. Fast and constant connectivity is not perpetually possible, particularly in the case of associated vehicles or installations in remote areas, the latency between sending data, processing and acknowledgement is not always compatible with certain applications, and storage costs are high even for data that is not certainly needed.

So there is a current tendency to relocate a section of the storage and processing of data to the periphery of the network, close to sensors and related objects. This technology termed as edge computing will be more important and frequently intelligent, thanks to chips optimized for machine learning and solutions able to bring on assumptions the AI algorithms of the usual suspects, such as Amazon Greengrass, Google Cloud IoT Edge or Microsoft Azure IoT Edge.

Information Is Wealth

Last year’s survey of IoT projects by a research firm showed that 35 per cent of respondents were selling or intending to sell data collected by their products and services. The theory of infonomics takes this monetization of data further by seeing it as a strategic business asset to be listed in the company accounts. By 2023, the buying and selling of IoT data will become a fundamental part of many IoT systems. CIOs must train their organizations on the jeopardies and opportunities related to data broking in order to set the IT policies required in this area and to advise other parts of the organization.

In future, we’ll recognise that significant players, such as utilities, insurance, grocery and food companies, take a modified approach with ongoing services facilitated by smart devices They’ll offer subscription offerings depending upon the customer data. Vendors will use upfront discounts to lure more customers in the expectation that they’ll want to continue once they see the utility.