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    • Rebooting the IT Revolution


    The marvelous advances in computing and communications that have revolutionized our lives and businesses over the past few decades have been driven by relentless progress in semiconductor technology. From computers that filled entire rooms in the 1960s to those that now fit on the edge of a coin, devices are increasingly smaller and more powerful.

    Now, as the technology is increasingly embedded in everyday objects connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) it’s crucial that the United States remains at the forefront of the Digital Revolution.

    According to a report issued by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the U.S. will need to invest $500 million in a focused research initiative over the next five years, to avoid losing its technology leadership.

    That amount seems reasonable considering that the payoff will be many times greater. As reported on BGR.com, Cisco CEO John Chambers told an audience at the Consumer Electronics Show that by 2024, fifty billion devices will be connected to the IoT, and they will create $19 trillion in “economic benefit and value.”1 While BGR points out that Chambers didn’t provide a source for this estimate, the Trends editors suspect he mistakenly moved a decimal point in the research firm Gartner’s prediction that the IoT will generate $1.9 trillion in value.

    The disparity between these numbers?$17.1 trillion, or the size of the national debt in 2013?highlights how hype and high expectations are running wild as the future of technology unfolds, shattering paradigms and threatening the balance of power in the global tech hierarchy.

    Yet, even the lower figure of $1.9 trillion is substantial. It’s precisely the amount that Boeing believes the explosive growth of the Asia-Pacific market will be worth over the next twenty years to the airline industry in the form of 13,000 new jet airliners, according to an unrelated YouTube video by Saxo Bank and TradingFloor.com.2

    But just as the IoT represents an opportunity for American tech firms, it’s also a threat. The report from the SIA and the SRC cautions that the ocean of data produced by the IoT is likely to exceed the capabilities of the industry’s current processing and storage technology.3 According to SRC president Ken Hansen, “The IoT, from ubiquitous sensor nodes to the cloud, will be orders of magnitude larger and more complex than anything we know today.”

    That leaves only two options, according to John Neuffer, SIA president and CEO, “We either aggressively invest in research to foster new, semiconductor-driven technologies?such as the Internet of Things?that will shape the future of the digital economy, or we risk ceding ground to competitors abroad.”4

    Overseas competitors aren’t just publishing reports about the IoT market; they’re making aggressive investments in the future of the industry. For example, South Korean company Samsung Electronics announced in June that it plans to invest $1.2 billion in the U.S. over four years in IoT technologies.5

    According to the Wall Street Journal, “The electronics giant said the funds would be split evenly between internal research and development and investments in startups. Executives said … the new funding represents an acceleration of the company’s attempt to compete with Intel Corp., Qualcomm Inc. and others to create chips and other hardware that manufacturers can incorporate into gadgets to make them internet-connected.”

    Among the IoT applications that Samsung is targeting are digital health devices; “smart machines,” including drones, robots, and autonomous vehicles; and software firms that are focusing on processing the data generated by Internet-connected devices.

    Fortunately, some U.S. tech companies are also funding research into the Internet of Things. For example, IBM intends to invest $3 billion over four years to establish a business unit with more than 2,000 consultants, researchers, and developers focused on the IoT. It plans to create an open cloud-based platform for collecting and interpreting data captured from the billions of devices that will be connected. Meanwhile, Cisco is investing $150 million in startup companies that are developing IoT offerings.

    But according to the report from SIA and the SRC, investments by the private sector in the U.S. won’t be enough. Instead, those efforts must be supported by government-funded programs, such as the National Strategic Computing Initiative, the Grand Challenges funded by the National Nanotechnology Initiative, and a project called BRAIN, an acronym for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Technologies.

    Which areas of research are critical? According to experts from industry, government, and academia who participated in a recent workshop called “Rebooting the IT Revolution”, the six most urgent priorities are:6

    1. Energy-efficient sensing and computing. Billions of cheap sensors will need to operate at low energy in order to provide the data needed for driverless vehicles to avoid accidents, for power companies to monitor consumers’ usage, and for doctors to keep track of elderly patients’ activities, among millions of other applications. There will be so many of these sensors surrounding us that it simply won’t be possible to replace batteries in them the way that homeowners replace batteries in smoke detectors. So they will need to derive power from other sources of energy, such as sunlight or biotech innovations, in order to operate without interruption. At the other extreme, advanced processors will need to overcome existing limitations on their performance that can cause overheating.

    2. Intelligent storage. With fifty billion sensors constantly churning out data, there will be a crucial need for innovative technologies that can store all that data.

    3. Real-time communication ecosystem. As the amount of data soars, the need for instantaneous wireless communications bandwidth will also surge. The report asserts that “Research is needed on advanced antenna arrays and the design of reliable and resilient communication networks that are capable of self-organizing and self-reconfiguring.”

    4. Multilevel and scalable security. With hundreds of internet-connected devices in every home, the risks of penetration by hackers will multiply. Add in the threat of ransomware that could seize control of the steering, acceleration, or braking of autonomous cars, as discussed recently in Trends, and the need for a robust security system is indisputable.

    5. Insight computing. As the knowledge from the data harvested from all those inputs leads to new insights, tomorrow’s computer systems will continue to improve. Among the research areas that will need funding are machine learning, data analytics, neuromorphic computing, and user-machine interfaces.

    6. An IoT test platform. To model different approaches to the Internet of Things, the industry will need a test platform to determine how well different solutions would work. The platform would need to be available to researchers from universities, tech companies, and government agencies.

    Based on this trend, we foresee the following developments:

    First, the U.S. government is likely to fund an initiative similar to the one outlined in the report from the SIA and the SRC.

    The National Computing and Insight Technology Ecosystem (N-CITE) will focus on achieving energy efficient computing and sensing, intelligent storage, a real-time communication ecosystem, multilevel and scalable security, insight computing, and an IoT test platform. This will require an unprecedented level of collaboration between tech companies and the government, as well as academia. This will go a long way toward ensuring that the United States will maintain its competitive position in the Deployment Phase of the Fifth Techno-Economic Revolution.

    Second, innovation will also accelerate as the result of Grand Challenge competitions that offer prizes to any innovators who can invent solutions to important problems.

    For example, one challenge is to create “devices no bigger than a grain of rice that can sense, compute, and communicate without wires or maintenance for ten years,” and another is to “create computer chips that are one hundred times faster, yet consume less power.”7

    Third, despite naysayers, the United States will dominate the remainder of the digital revolution.

    America’s risk-taking business culture, its unrivaled research universities, its enormous defense budget, and its advantages in terms of attracting and keeping the best talent from around the world already provide huge advantages. When complemented by targeted medium-term initiatives, like N CITE, it is hard to see how any other country could surpass the United States. Only excessive regulation and a failure to safeguard intellectual property could cause it to relinquish leadership.

    References
    1. com, February 26, 2014, “‘Internet of Things’ Will Be Worth More than the National Debt,” by Ben Zigterman. ⓒ 2014 BGR Media LLC. All rights reserved. http://bgr.com/2014/02/26/internet-of-things-market-value/2. To find out how much growth Boeing believes the Asia-Pacific market holds over the next twenty years, visit the YouTube website at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUa5k6x-xaU3. The VAR Guy, September 6, 2015, “‘Semiconductor Groups: $500 Million Needed for Coming IoT Data Flood,” by DH Kass. ⓒ 2015 Penton. All rights reserved. http://thevarguy.com/big-data-technology-solutions-and-information/090615/semiconductor-groups-500-million-needed-coming-iot-dat4. iBid.5. The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2016, “Samsung to Invest $1.2 Billion in ‘Internet of Things’ Startups and Research in U.S.” by Christopher Mims. ⓒ 2016 Dow Jones & Company. All rights reserved. http://www.wsj.com/articles/samsung-to-invest-1-2-billion-in-internet-of-things-startups-and-research-in-u-s-14665140056. To access the report “Rebooting the IT Revolution: A Call to Action,” visit the Semiconductor Industry Association website at: http://www.semiconductors.org/document_library_and_resources/research_and_technology/rebooting_the_it_revolution_a_call_to_action/?query=category.eq.Research and Technology&back=DocumentSIA7. CBS News, April 6, 2015, “This Is the World’s Smallest Computer,” by Rex Sakamoto. ⓒ 2015 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-worlds-smallest-computer-university-of-michigan-micro-mote/