By James Blackman
The Industry IoT Consortium (IIC) has released an industrial IoT and AI framework (IIAIF) to raise awareness of the value artificial intelligence (AI) can bring to industrial IoT systems, and to address emerging requirements and implementation challenges. The 60-page document says AI will become standard in IoT, in time, and its absence from IoT solutions in the future should be considered “irresponsible”.
The IIAIF paper seeks to combine both IT and OT perspectives, and to consider the various aspects of next-ge AI-enabled industrial IoT systems. It sums up the “business viewpoint” around the “vision, values, and objectives” of business stakeholders establishing an industrial IoT systems, as well as the “usage viewpoint” and “functional viewpoint” as well, around system usage and functional components.
It also lays out the practical “implementation viewpoint” to implement new systems and applications, and to make them tally. The report is available here. The IIC said growth and innovation in AI have “unlocked applications that a few years ago were infeasible”.
Chair of the IIC industrial AI task group and secretary IIC steering committee, Wael William Diab said: These advances are fueling digital transformation across industry sectors such as manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, finance, and retail. By taking a holistic approach to the emerging requirements and challenges, the framework aims to accelerate responsible adoption of AI-enabled IIoT systems and ultimately bring the benefits of digital transformation to more use cases and sectors.”
Executive vice president at IGnPower and chief editor of the IIAIF, Bassam Zarkout said: “AI-enabled IIoT systems enable better insights, faster decision making, and more effective operations, and empower organizations to deliver higher value to the market. The framework is unique in terms of positioning, scope, and real-world use cases. It addresses the practical business, trustworthiness, ethical, and technical considerations of AI with other digital transformation enabling technologies.”
Chief technology officer at IIC and executive vice president at OMG, Stephen Mellor said: “The IIC is focused on creating transformative business value by accelerating the adoption of industrial IoT systems. The IIAIF is a prime example of how IIC is facilitating the adoption of emerging technology by helping organizations understand and address the unique requirements of AI in IIoT environments.”