[reprint the 3C (Criticism, Consulting, Construction) IoT Think Tank]
In July 2017, Gartner company released the Annual Maturity Curve of Emerging Technologies. Gartner believed that the curve revealed technical trends in three aspects in next 5-10 years. The first was the ubiquitous artificial intelligence, the second was immersive experience, and the last was digital platform. The gathering in these three aspects would bring a competitive business ecology.

Picture: Original English Edition

Picture 1: The Maturity Curve of 2017 Year’s Emerging Technologies (source: Gartner, in July 2017)

>>>> Edge computing
Edge computing describes a computational topology, including information processing, contents collection and delivery, which is much similar to information’s sources and gathering. Starting from the concept of mesh network and distributed data centers, edge computing focuses on processing and maintenance of flows between local and far-away network center. Its goal is to reduce delay and unnecessary flows, establish a hub for interconnection between peer points of interest, and refine data of complex media type or calculated load.

Most technologies of physical infrastructure to create edge data center are ready-made, but the wide application of topology, explicit application, network architecture is not common. Edge computing plays a synergistic role in physical realization of tracks, greatly improving the visibility of concept. It is required to expand system and network management platform, including edge position and edge function specific technology, such as data refinement, video compression and analysis, etc.

>>>> IoT platform
Different enterprises are committed to increasing types of IoT terminal, seeking better benefits, and finding new business opportunities and profit model. Due to the interaction among these factors, enterprises need to constantly increase advanced technical resources to achieve the corresponding maturity, scale and commercial value. The large-scale IoT platform can realize advanced IoT schemes and digital business operation. Based on a hybrid deployment, IoT platform will combine cloud elements (either private or public) with local software which are distributed between terminal and gateway.

More and more enterprises expand promotion of IoT platform through IoT and digital business, and promote investments on IoT platforms and services between suppliers and users. The increase of deployed IoT projects forms challenges to people’s cost expectation and undervaluation of technology (e.g., equipment configuration, end-to-end solution’s integration and enough internet security), and pushes the IoT platform to be close to the expected expansion of the peak. Based on the accumulated practical experience, they eventually may enter into the mainstream of productivity and mature. In 2017, many large manufactures may bring the second generation of product market. In general, their sales haven’t been proved by enough evidences, but taking new entrants into account, their sales are bound to continue to increase.