By Michael Skurla, Chief Product Officer, Radix IoT, LLC
Expect 2024 to be a transformative, pivotal year for IoT's unprecedented growth and innovation. ‘Smart' devices, advanced data-driven analytics and permeating connectivity will redefine the way we work and interact with each other and our multitude of devices.
As technology organizations continue to be scrutinized for their increased power and water usage as our world faces water shortages, 2024 will bring prioritized sustainable, eco-friendly IT practices focused on ESG initiatives and environmental sustainability. Across all sectors, energy-efficient hardware and carbon-neutral computing will be underscored with "green" data center technologies. Emerging software services will tout enhanced data-driven operational efficiency for IoT sensors in mission-critical infrastructure.
As 12.7% of full-time employees in 2023 clocked in working from home-with an additional 28.2% opting for a hybrid work environment-the remote work model in 2024 will rage on to permanently transform how and where we "work". With remote operational accessibility at unprecedented levels, and restoring pre-COVID working models no longer an option, "smart" companies and vendors will offer improved remote work infrastructure by securing efficient communication and collaboration tools.
Expect a surge in edge computing solutions in 2024-including edge data centers-as processing data closer to the source will gain unprecedented demand. Even with faster 5G networks, autonomous vehicles and indoor location services will demand better services with heightened local analytics. The reduced latency and enhanced real-time decision-making will become even more critical to the IoT space, necessitating expedited critical processing that can't be done ‘onboard' a device.
With evolving technologies in 2024 introducing greater threats, cybersecurity concerns will be top priority across all sectors. The emerging layer of AI-driven threat detection advancements will prioritize threat ‘detect' pushing aside 'react' methodology-allowing recovery to sustain essential, uninterrupted services for such critical applications as smart cities and healthcare systems.
While in 2023 Blockchain got a bad rap with its relations to cryptocurrency, its promise will be further leveraged beyond that. Perhaps more than a prediction, but a wish for 2024 would be for companies to reconsider blockchain technology as the ideal channel for far more secure data exchange across the board.
Finally, the surge of edge computing, sustainable IT practices, cybersecurity, blockchain, and remote work will secure IoT's prominent role in authorizing smarter and more efficient work models, cities, industries, and personalized experiences. This surge, and our ceaseless always-on connectivity thirst, will bring about whitecaps of data security and privacy concerns pushing for closer collaborations between industry leaders and regulators to maintain inclusive, and more beneficial and sustainable, IoT deployments.