State of the Industrial Internet - Part II

In my last post from Web Summit I discussed the advances in technology that is enabling the Industrial Internet and the financial benefits. The Industrial Internet will provide quality of life benefits for society as well. The Industrial Internet is enabling services to be delivered faster, and with less waste and pollution. The Industrial Internet is capable of impacting our lives in multiple dimensions including financial and environmental.

One of the concerns is will the Industrial Internet displace people. Dr. Salvo believes that the Industrial Internet will enable the expansion of opportunity for people. The Industrial Internet will allow devices to replace and eliminate many of the tasks done by humans today, but it will create new opportunities that were not possible previously. For example when was the last time you didn’t use a digital mapping application to decide how to get to a new address? Even for familiar addresses many people use an application like Waze to make sure they take the fastest route when considering current traffic, and construction detours. The more users and vehicles using the system the better the service which reduces travel time, and wasted fuel.

We then discussed the differences in how the Industrial Internet is being developed compared to previous major technology developments such as cloud. The Industrial Internet is integrated across so many industries and technologies it will not be developed by one company but by a combination of private, public, and universities working together. These groups need to be able to openly collaborate together in a transparent manner which has led to the formation of several consortium's. The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) is one example. It was founded a little of one year ago and has grown to over 200 public, private, and universities in 28 countries.  

EMC’s Said Tabet highlighted one of the most successful projects sponsored by the IIC is the test bed program. EMC has teamed with Vodafone, and the Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) to sponsor one of these in Ireland. The test bed is a set of infrastructure services (cloud if you like) that is open to developers to prototype Industrial Internet services. The test bed provides a developer with a set of easily accessible building block components needed to get started with a prototype. More information in the Infinite Test Bed service including getting access is available here.

The Industrial Internet is here and the benefits are accelerating beyond just financial but to society as well through reduced pollution, and speed of service delivery. The Industry Internet is enabling new opportunities that we are now just starting to imagine. The Industrial Internet opportunity is so big and evolving so quickly it is requiring more collaboration between private, public, and universities. It has never been easier to participate through consortium's such as the IIC. How are you engaging in the development of the Industrial Internet?