The global IoT market will almost double in value over the next five years, growing a compound rate (CAGR) of 13.5 percent per year over the period, from a total revenue of $959.6 billion in 2023 to $1.8 trillion in 2028. So says data and analytics firm GlobalData, with a new report, which puts the uptick in IoT sales down to a rush on adjacent 5G and AI technologies, as well as the emergence of non-terrestrial network (NTN; satellite) solutions.
Enterprise IoT will account for 72 percent of total market revenue by 2028, it says – up from 70 percent in 2023, and also reflecting the enterprise push on 5G, notably in private networks and with eRedCap/RedCap, and AI at the edge. The consumer segment will make up 28 percent in 2028, down from 30 percent in 2023. The conflation of IoT sensing and AI sense-making at the edge is being commonly branded as AIoT, or an artificial intelligence of things.
It is a term that Bosch, at least, was using five years ago. But Global Data, like others, now sees fit to label it as a driver, as compute processing, supporting some AI inference, finds its way onto IoT gateways and even sensors. “AI is… an IoT catalyst,” it writes. “AIoT involves embedding AI into IoT devices, software, and services. Combining data collected by connected sensors and actuators with AI supports automated operations and predictive maintenance.”
William Rojas, research director at the firm, said: ”AIoT technologies in the form of embedded AI acceleration microprocessors, combined with new wireless access technologies, will act as a further catalyst for IoT adoption across enterprise and consumer sectors. Deployments that might have initially used only one type of IoT sensor are expanding to include a wide range of sensors as the cloud analytics processing capability continues to expand.”
New NTN constellations, combining low-Earth and geostationary Earth orbiting (LEO, GEO) satellites to extend cellular and non-cellular IoT (mostly NB-IoT and LoRaWAN) connectivity, effectively patch-up IoT coverage across huge uninhabited expanses where there are no terrestrial networks, and make good on the promise of globally-available tracking and monitoring capabilities – as required for certain shipping, agricultural, and mining jobs.
Besides, GlobalData notes continuing concerns about the security of IoT deployments. It writes: “Fragmented standards and weak security could hold back further IoT adoption. Despite ongoing industry efforts, there are no globally accepted IoT security standards. Many IoT devices have limited computing capacity and cannot run effective security software, leaving them and their networks vulnerable to cyberattacks.” But AI can help, it concludes.
Rojas said: “Unlike other [technologies] and tools – such as AI, cybersecurity, and cloud computing – IoT is a digital ecosystem consisting of interdependent connectivity and data layers that aggregate, store, and process telemetric data from IoT sensors. Embedded AIoT can also play a role in enhancing security at the device level. Where more heavy compute resources are needed with low latency, then edge computing will be the best option.”
