Will IoT Help To Build A Smart India?

IoT has the potential to bring about the next industrial revolution and to transform society, establishing a new ecosystem to serve humanity. In an IoT enabled world, people will receive uniquely personalised services, on demand, while societies will benefit from optimised resource use with minimal impact on the environment.

The interaction between humans and machines is on the verge of a radical shift with the potential to unlock immense possibilities, facilitated by the Internet of Things or IoT. With simultaneous advances in technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), these interactions between humans and machines can enable devices to anticipate, react to, respond and enhance events in the physical world. IoT is well poised to usher in the next ‘technological revolution’, since the dawn of the Internet era. The Internet of Things gains more relevance as the world turns more digital. There is no doubt about the value it has unlocked so far and its potential to change lives.

As the world gets increasingly connected, global IoT spending is set to increase significantly over the coming years. Though there are nagging security concerns that are yet to be addressed, a study by Cradlepoint (an industry leader in cloud-delivered 4G LTE network solutions for business, service providers, and government organisations) reveals that close to 70 per cent of organisations have adopted, or plan to adopt, IoT solutions within the next year. Gartner forecasts 20.8 billion connected devices by 2020. Bain Analysis predicts the combined markets of the Internet of Things (IoT) will grow to about US$ 520 billion in 2021, more than double the US$ 235 billion spent in 2017 (Figure 1).

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