Ten years ago, I co-founded RIoT to unite the Research Triangle region around the Internet of Things. At that time, I saw an opportunity for our region to become a recognized center of excellence in the next big change in the global economy. [ASIDE – RIoT is holding a 10th Anniversary Celebration March 19 at 5 p.m. along with our partners Raleigh Founded and NC IDEA. Please feel welcome to register and attend].
Early in my career, I experienced a simultaneous technological tipping point: the advent of the Internet and the transition from analog to digital communications. These changes combined to create a tectonic shift in the economy that today is clearly defined as “pre-Internet” and “post-Internet.”
To be honest, there is not a startup today that does not use the Internet and digital communication in its business. Even the least connected businesses to technology still have emails, websites, and mobile phone numbers. Most industries and commerce are fundamentally tied to the Internet.
In the early 2010s, we saw similar commercial readiness “slopes” in data analytics, energy harvesting, battery storage, nanotechnology, and wireless communications. In each of these areas, improvements were seen in incremental changes rather than simply incremental evolutionary progress. And importantly, these were improvements that could be scaled up, rather than improvements that could only be achieved in the lab.
A simple summary is like this.
- The cost per computation for data analysis is now close to $0.
- This means that compute-intensive machine learning and artificial intelligence are finally commercially viable.
- The cost per data point to store data was approaching $0.
- This means you can collect datasets large enough to properly train your AI in a meaningful and nuanced way.
- The cost of manufacturing and packaging simple semiconductors for large-scale sensing applications was approaching $0.
- This means that sensors can now be deployed everywhere, even in very low-cost devices.
- The cost per data package to wirelessly transmit data over long distances was approaching $0.
- This means you can collect data from anywhere in the world and instantly aggregate it with other data at an affordable price.
- The efficiency of harvesting energy from the environment and efficiently storing energy in the battery has increased at both ends.
- Small devices may finally be self-powered, able to operate permanently from their surrounding environment and permanently collect sensor data.
- Large devices (cars, airplanes, homes, etc.) may become part of new energy network infrastructures, both as consumers of electricity and as its storage/distributors. Additionally, these larger devices with computing and power could become part of an “edge cloud” that reduces reliance on centralized data centers for computing.
With access to powerful new technology capabilities at almost zero cost, anyone can suddenly become an innovator. Focusing on accessibility allows everyone to participate in innovation. It was clear to me that the Internet of Things was an umbrella term for all of these technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee is widely considered to be the inventor of the Internet. In 1990 he coined the term “World Wide Web.” The term stuck around for a while, but ultimately it was only temporary. Eventually, the broader term “Internet” essentially came to describe the network of connected devices and computers that power every aspect of our lives today.
Internet of Things may also be a temporary term. Too many people think that IoT is only about devices and are fixated on “things.” This couldn’t be further from the truth. IoT is data automation. In the Internet era, networked computers leverage stored, cataloged, tagged, and filtered information to enable services and applications.
In the data economy (which I believe is an alternative term for IoT), we are relentlessly striving to reduce the lifecycle of data to zero. Ultimately, IoT makes it possible to collect sensor data from any location, instantly aggregate it, instantly analyze it, instantly visualize it, and instantly automate responses.
Real-time pure automation will replace common internet-based processes and services. In the future, there will be no new businesses other than data businesses that deploy real-time automation to gain a competitive advantage. The Internet has killed off the Yellow Pages. Searching information databases was much more powerful than flipping through books. Google is already seeing AI assistants take over search. In the future, the text search bar will become a novelty seen in movies and museums of the 2000s.
AI and ML (analytics automation), AR and VR (visualization automation), 5G and LPWAN (aggregation automation), energy harvesting (system power automation), edge sensors and cameras (data generation automation) are all IoT technology. These are all components of a data economy system of automation.
When RIoT was established, it was clear that our region had the expertise, diversity and first-mover advantage to be recognized as a global center of excellence for IoT. The term data economy hadn’t even occurred to me yet (and even if it had, we probably wouldn’t have come up with the cool name RDE 🙂).
Join us on Tuesday evening as we share how we have progressed in our leadership journey over the past decade and what new technology tipping points we expect to see in the next decade. please.
