General Electric has just completed a study and feels enthusiastic enough to enter a new buzz phrase into an already crowded M2M lexicon - the 'Industrial Internet' is on its way. By I.D. Scales.
In fact this is an excellent paper and GE has committed itself to big numbers. It predicts that connecting the world's machines and having them do more intelligent things could boost global GDP by US$10-15 trillion by 2030.
This is another lens on the benefits of an increasingly connected world of 'things' - whether they be real-world sensors, consumer devices, data objects in the cloud or indeed machines, the latter being GE's particular 'thing' of course. Industrial machines, medical kit, consumer durables, you name it GE is in there making it.
Earlier this year we had bullish pronouncements on the number (50 billion) of devices likely to be connected by 2020.
This paper is really a look at the industrial benefits (in trillions of dollars) of that level of connectivity once the data starts to flow.
From a GE perspective, M2M connectivity is expected to increase the efficiency of the machines it manufacturers - in many case making them interconnected systems and boosting their productivity or lowering their energy consumption. Essentially making them more valuable to their customers.
The paper therefore places the development of Industrial Internet as an inevitable next phase in the industrial revolution. That goes: machines (then), to intelligent machines (now), to linked up intelligent machines (2030).
It's also the next step for the Internet of people. The Industrial Internet of machines is where the Internet needs to go having "fizzled" around 2005 in terms of endless accelerating growth, says the report. The arrival of the Industrial Internet will pick up the slack.
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