The 10 most relevant IoT developments of last year
1. Biggest new IoT commitment: Xiaomi
In January 2020, Chinese electronics manufacturer Xiaomi announced that it plans to at least invest $7.2 billion into 5G and the artificial intelligence of things (AIOT) in the next 5 years. The new push includes major investments into a number of consumer and enterprise IoT devices such as smart TVs, drones, electric scooters, air purifiers, routers, security cameras, and much more.
2. Biggest IoT contribution to Covid-19 relief: Saving lives
At the beginning of 2020, nobody in the IoT industry could foresee the important role IoT technology would play to save lives throughout the year. A widely cited June 2020 study by the Imperial College London estimated that social distancing during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic saved 3 million lives in Europe alone. While most of these saved lives can be attributed to people simply staying at home, wearing masks, and avoiding contact, IoT technology undoubtedly prevented further spread in several instances.
Many IoT vendors raced to launch social distancing tools (including Bosch.IO’s workplace distancing and contact tracing solution, Software AG’s and Dell’s Smart Social Distancing solution, or Concept Reply’s Tracking and Location system – just to name a few).
The Goebecke bakery in the German city of Leipzig is just one of the many examples of a business using such a solution. The business owner described how both the audio alerts in the workplace and the ability to analyze the employee data led to more cautious and aware employees who subsequently changed their distancing behavior.
More recently, the focus of IoT for Covid-19 has shifted to vaccine supply chain monitoring to ensure vaccines are delivered safely without product loss, tampering, or spoilage. Pfizer/Biontech, for example, selected the Iceland-based startup Controlant to monitor its Covid-19 vaccine distribution.
3. Most accelerated IoT vertical: Healthcare For years, implementing IoT projects in healthcare settings had proven to be cumbersome due to the highly regulated nature of the industry, and a lack of sponsorship and urgency to digitize portions of the sector.
Now, there is growing evidence that Covid-19 has led to a digital explosion in healthcare, particularly in hospitals. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in May 2020, issued multiple temporary policies to support digital tools during 2020. For the first time, Germany in October 2020 allowed doctors to prescribe access to digital health apps for specific diseases (e.g., an app that helps in curing anxiety disorder).
One of the applications that surged during the pandemic is “telehealth”, where a doctor treats a patient via video conference. Doctors report that telehealth is often seen as just a first step towards digital diagnostics that leans on IoT devices to perform digital diagnostics from afar. Several hospitals started experimenting with it in 2020. In December 2020, a video of a London surgeon went viral who performed remote surgery on a Banana in California using 5G.
4. Biggest IoT 2020 funding round: Samsara 400M Samsara has done it again. Samsara already topped our 2019 list of biggest IoT funding rounds ($300M, Series F). In May 2020, in the middle of the first Covid-19 lockdown, the company raised another $400 million with the aim to further build out its Industrial IoT presence. The funding round valued the company at $5.4B, a 14% valuation decrease from the 2019 investment. While announcing the funding round, CEO Sanjit Biswas, also announced the layoff of 300 jobs (18% of the workforce) due to Covid-19 impact on their key vertical of transportation.
5. Most important technology standardization: 5G Release 16
In July 2020, the 3GPP standards body reached an important milestone: It released version 16, its second set of specifications for 5G technology, and a very important step for 5G IoT. The new set of specifications that make up Release 16 include major improvements for “ultra-reliable, low-latency communication” (eURLLC), positioning capabilities, as well as support for TSN (Time-Sensitive Networking) – all aspects which are very important for IoT connectivity for various IoT use cases, particularly in the Industrial IoT space. While 5G connectivity for smartphones has become widely available throughout 2020, IoT Analytics expects 5G IoT (which does not include NB-IoT/LTE-M) to take off in 2022 and beyond.
In July 2020, the 3GPP standards body reached an important milestone: It released version 16, its second set of specifications for 5G technology, and a crucial step for 5G IoT. The new set of specifications that make up Release 16 include major improvements for “ultra-reliable, low-latency communication” (eURLLC), positioning capabilities, as well as support for TSN (Time-Sensitive Networking) – all aspects which are very important for IoT connectivity for various IoT use cases, particularly for higher-end applications such as those often found in the Industrial IoT space. Besides, Release 16 enables the deployment and management of NB-IoT and LTE-M technologies over the new 5G Core networks, allowing 5G networks to manage massive and low complexity IoT through these technologies. Currently, there are globally about ~200 million IoT connections that use NB-IoT/LTE-M. IoT Analytics expects 5G IoT for higher-end applications to take off in 2022 and beyond
6. Most prominent new buzzword: AIoT
For years, people have argued that IoT's real value gets unlocked with AI/ML algorithms that are applied to the IoT data streams. Therefore, in hindsight, it is not surprising that 2020 produced a new buzzword that became mainstream: AI + IoT= AIoT. In December 2020, there were roughly 70% more Google searches for the topic than 12 months prior. Interestingly, the term seems to have originated in China (and not in the US, like the term “IoT”). Huawei and Xiaomi but also Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC have been pushing the idea of the Artificial Intelligence of Things, the convergence of AI and IoT for a couple of years now.
In 2020, a number of “non-Chinese” firms took up the term in their branding efforts. US-based industrial software provider, Aspen Technology in August 2020, announced its new AIoT hub for Industry 4.0, Swiss cybersecurity company Wisekey in September 2020 launched a new digital strategy centered around AIoT. Other examples of firms pushing the term in 2020 include Singapore-based ASM Pacific Technology and US-based analytics software provider SAS.
7. Biggest IoT-related acquisition: ARM-Nvidia
On September 13, 2020, Nvidia announced its intent to acquire ARM in the largest semiconductor deal to date, valued at $40 billion. Apart from being the largest semiconductor deal, the acquisition is expected to result in new technology innovation for AI & edge IoT. NVIDIA purchased the major segment of the business, ARM’s Processor IP, which also has a significant IoT component, especially for edge computing. However, ARM’s IoT product & service group (ARM’s Pelion IoT Platform, MbedOS, SoC Solution/Security, and KigenSIM solution) will not be a part of this transaction. If the deal receives regulatory approval, it could lead to a scenario in which Chinese companies are permanently withheld from ARM's technology. This may further create imbalances in the US-China trade relation, creating a US dominance in the semiconductor IP market.
8. Most ambitious new IoT connectivity technology: Amazon Sidewalk
In November 2020, Amazon informed customers of Amazon Echo devices and Ring security cameras that Amazon Sidewalk will soon be rolled out to their devices. Sidewalk is an ambitious project aiming to create a neighborhood-shared network to allow IoT devices such as pet or asset trackers to connect to the internet even when someone’s home wi-fi network is down or out of range. This is done by linking different wi-fi networks into a single low-bandwidth network that can be used by IoT devices from different users. In September 2020, Semtech, the chip company behind the Lora low-power standard, announced that it had entered into a partnership with Amazon to collaborate on building out the network. A few months later, in December, it was reported that the Lora Alliance was in talks to also come on board and support Sidewalk by using the open LoRaWAN standard, which the alliance and its 500+ member companies support
9. Most important government initiative: US IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act In December 2020, the “IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act” was finally signed into law in the US. We had already discussed the importance of the law in our 2017 IoT year in review article (here). Among other things, the law requires the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to update IoT security standards and guidelines regularly (at least every 5 years). Experts hope that the law will lead manufacturers to design IoT devices with a number of cybersecurity features in mind (e.g., using secure coding practices, providing adequate authentication, patch devices on a regular basis).
10. Biggest IoT 2020 IPO: C3.ai On December 9, 2020, C3.ai went public (Traded with the ticker “AI” at the New York Stock Exchange). C3 is a true IoT success story. The company was founded in 2009 by American billionaire Tom Siebel who is well-known for founding Siebel Systems, which he sold in January 2006 to Oracle. C3.ai was initially called C3 Energy and had a heavy focus on digitizing grids, meters, and utilities. The company later (in 2016) branded into C3IoT and broadened its focus beyond energy and as a horizontal IoT platform. In recent years, the company has emphasized horizontal analytics and AI capabilities, which is why the company rebranded yet again into C3.ai. C3.ai, today, claims that it reads data from 57 million sensors, but Siebel makes it clear that the focus is AI (including non-IoT applications ). The December 2020 IPO has been a success so far, with shares having soared >40% from its opening price, valuing the company at almost $14B (as of January 8).
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