Louise Summerton, EMEA ecosystem sales director for the internet of things at Intel
The internet of things will power big data and how businesses use that data to make decisions will be crucial, Intel’s Louise Summerton has said.
Ireland was recently selected as the latest location for an Intel internet of things (IoT) Innovation and Development Ignition Lab, where Intel will collaborate with local companies to develop technologies for the IoT marketplace.
The Ignition Lab will focus specifically on key areas like smart homes and buildings, smart cities, smart cars, energy and utilities, and smart agriculture.
The IoT is considered one of the fastest-growing areas of the tech industry, heralding enormous potential economic and social change by harnessing connected devices more cleverly.
Industry analysts estimate there will be 50bn connected devices in the world by 2020.
To date, Intel has established five Ignition Labs in Europe and the Middle East, including in the UK, Sweden, Germany, Turkey and Israel.
This lab is the latest investment in Intel’s history in Ireland since it set up here in 1989.
“What we are trying to do is bring different hardware customers in who have different ideas so they can turn those ideas into reality.
“This lab gives people the opportunity to do product training, bring people together in one place and do rapid development and bring that to market,” Summerton said.
Analyse this: big data and the internet of things
Summerton said that the evolution of big data will be enabled by the internet of things, in which a world with sensors and data gateways in industries from government to transport and energy will be always on and will never sleep.
“The capability to have technology and gather that data is the first step. Storing that data and analysing that data securely and then having people take actions or make decisions requires more analytics.
“So if you think about those different steps it’s going to evolve over time and the more you information you get and couple it with other data sources – big data — how you analyse it and the decisions you take are going to be crucial.”
