The number of connected devices in the IoT industry is on an incline – no doubt about it. According to Statista, there will be 32.1 billion IoT devices in 2030. This marks one major trend that Chris Baird, CEO of OptConnect, told IoT Insider he saw shaping the industry in an exclusive interview about major trends.
The impact of the pandemic
“That trend is being driven through mass adoption of this concept of always being connected,” Baird explained, citing the pandemic as a period of time we all went through where we realised (if we hadn’t already!) the importance of being connected.
“We were already underway in providing connectivity well before the pandemic, but we saw some interesting trends where on a rapid scale we saw, for example, retailers adopting an interactive kiosk solution to replace what used to be a human to human interaction.”
The shortage of workers during this period – which, in some industries, is an ongoing issue not exclusive to the pandemic, but perhaps was exacerbated by – meant the adoption of technology to replace conventional human interactions became more popular.
I asked Baird if he had any experience with companies who reconsidered their connectivity solutions and strategy during the pandemic – the short answer was yes.
“One of the things we learned quickly is that some of our clientele came to us and said, ‘Because of the design and nature of your products … We’d like to continue to do that, but as we move to work from home, we have a number of employees who don’t have that infrastructure. Can we use your equipment in their home to supplement their Internet?’” This caused OptConnect to “pivot” in recognition of what their customers needed. The result was a solution that allowed customers to use the Internet while working from home.
Connectivity on an incline
Another trend, this focus on connectivity, Baird said, was owing to companies’ serious investment in infrastructure. “Many of them saw the pandemic as a time not to slow down or to back off their strategy, but to double down. In the States, we saw a number of carriers – specifically, the largest carriers – lay down fibre to provide the backbone. The perfect time to do it was when people were at home and the roads were less populated.”
A third trend, the amount of data to provide actionable insights, is thanks to a growth in connected devices. “There’s so much data that it’s almost to the point where it takes machine learning, AI, dare I say supercomputers, to be able to take these millions or billions of data points and extract meaningful information,” emphasised Baird. “We have a number of customers who have decided what they want to use for IoT is to help their clientele get actionable insights.”
The number of connected devices anticipated is around the 30 billion mark, which translates to lots and lots of data. “It’s going to be physically impossible for any human to make sense of that data,” said Baird. “The only solution is to get more intelligent about how we parse, store and analyse that data.” This is where AI comes in – artificial intelligence and autonomous intelligence.
One customer of OptConnect is using these insights to power down sections of the electrical grid when there are weather-related events. “They’re forcing a power outage but in the name of preventing larger disasters like sparking wildfires in areas where people aren’t there to monitor and quickly react like in big cities,” explained Baird.
Cybersecurity and security
“The security space in general is infinitely growing,” commented Baird. “As that end market grows, in parallel so does the importance around having secure IoT solutions.”
OptConnect looks at security through a secure by design lens, not as an afterthought but “intentional”. Secure by design refers to designing software and hardware so that it is secure from the ground up – as opposed to security being implemented at a later date. It reflects a shifting mindset in how devices are designed and deployed, as well as a recognition that security is the company’s collective responsibility and not just the IT department’s.
“There’s less and less a distinction between security and cybersecurity, they’re becoming one in the same,” he said.
Following the Crowdstrike faulty configuration update that caused a global outage affecting travel, healthcare and banks, adopting a zero trust architecture could avoid this situation from happening again. “OptConnect was not impacted directly by the Crowdstrike update but our plans as an organisation were interrupted … the banking worlds came screeching to a halt while they tried to recover. We think there’s a lot to this discussion.”
During our conversation, Baird referred to technology as something with the power to do both good and bad (in summary, not verbatim). Ultimately, his belief is in the power of technology to shape our futures.
“I think we’re on the cusp of seeing what mass adoption [of technologies] looks like … There are so many exciting things that I think are important to us,” Baird concluded. “There are a number of exciting things happening globally and at OptConnect that we’re excited about.”
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