Blockchain crops up in many of the pitches for security software aimed at the industrial IoT. However, IIoT project owners, chipmakers and OEMs should stick with security options that address the low-level, device- and data-centered security of the IIoT itself, rather than the effort to promote blockchain as a security option as well as an audit tool.

Only about 6% of Industrial IoT (IIoT) project owners chose to build IIoT-specific security into their initial rollouts, while 44% said it would be too expensive, according to a 2018 survey commissioned by digital security provider Gemalto.

Currently, only 48% of IoT project owners can see their devices well enough to know if there has been a breach, according to the 2019 version of Gemalto’s annual survey.

Software packages that could fill in the gaps were few and far between.

Still, the recognition is widespread that security is a problem with connected devices. Spending on IIoT/IoT-specific security will grow 25.1% per year, from $1.7 billion during 2018, to $5.2 billion by 2023, according to a 2018 market analysis report from BCC Research. Another study, by Juniper Research, predicts 300% growth by 2023, to just over $6 billion.

Blockchain also can be used to track and verify sensor data, prevent duplication or the insertion of malicious data and provide ongoing verification of the identity of individual devices, according to an analysis from IBM, which promotes the use of blockchain in both technical and financial functions.

Use of blockchain in securing IIoT/IoT assets among those polled in Gemalto’s latest survey rose to 19%, up from 9% in 2017. And 23% of respondents said they believe blockchain is an ideal solution to secure IIoT/IoT assets.

Any security may be better than none, but some of the more popular options don’t translate well into actual IIoT-specific security, according to Michael Chen, design for security director at Mentor, a Siemens Business.

“You have to look at it carefully, know what you’re trying to accomplish and what the security level is,” Chen said. “Public blockchain is great for things like the stock exchange or buying a home, because on a public blockchain with 50,000 people if you wanted to cheat you’d have to get more than 50% to cooperate. Securing IIoT devices, even across a supply chain, is going to be a lot smaller group, which wouldn’t be much reassurance that something was accurate. And meanwhile, we’re still trying to figure out how to do root of trust and key management and a lot of other things that are a different and more of an immediate challenge.”

Others agree. “Using blockchain to track the current location and state of an IoT device is probably not a good use of the technology,”

Experience working on the Internet of Things indicates where the value lies.

As we’ve worked with clients on Internet of Things (IoT) projects over the past year, we’ve noticed ten trends shaping the industry that we expect to continue in 2019.

1. IoT is a business opportunity, not just a tech opportunity

2. Disciplined execution across multiple use cases is the path to value

3. IoT is gradually enabling more subscription business models, but consumers are resistant

4. Favorable winds are blowing in heavy industrial sectors

5. Amazon and Google have hit critical mass in connected homes

6. Chinese IoT firms are winning locally and starting to gain ground globally

7. Conflicts over data access are delaying business impact

8. Cost pressures are determining whether the cloud or the ‘edge’ environment wins out as the IoT host environment

9. Cyberattacks are not noticeably derailing existing IoT efforts

10. Artificial intelligence (AI) has caught on in IoT in the past two years

AI has been around in some form since the 1960s but often has generated more hype than results. While some hype remains, real use cases with valuable results are emerging, particularly around machine learning (ML), as adoption steadily increases. According to our research, AI and ML are being used in 60 percent of IoT activities. What changed? Three major things have spurred the increase in the use of AI: the convergence of algorithmic advances, data proliferation, and tremendous increases in power and storage capabilities at a lower cost. For AI and ML to scale, production-grade data platforms are needed. Clearly, business leaders expect that to happen, with adoption of AI and ML expected to outpace other technologies

McKinsey & Company identified 10 top trends in the Internet of Things. They include: IoT is a business opportunity, not just a tech opportunity; disciplined execution across multiple use cases is the path to value; and IoT is gradually enabling more subscription business models, but consumers are resistant.

Louis Columbus of IQMS provides some IoT data points and identifies what he believes are the top 25 IoT startups out there. Venture Scanner says IoT startup funding was $16.7 billion during the fourth quarter of 2018, with all of 2018’s funding for IoT startups increasing by 94% compared with 2017.

University of Pennsylvania researchers have designed objects that can respond dynamically to their environment without motors or microcontrollers.

This artificial Venus flytrap developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania only closes when a weight is inside and the actuator is exposed to a solvent. Structures with “embodied logic” can have even more complicated behaviors, all without motors or microcontrollers.

One of the primary elements in the transformation of the manufacturing plants is the changing nature of demand from the customers. There is sturdy economic impetus toward products that are high on precision, safe to use and safely produced, built to purpose, manufactured with less material consumption throughout the value chain, and environment friendly. While presently manufacturing is focused on productivity and performance, the future will be all about precision products. Manufacturers are supposed to accomplish this without compromising on the speed or quality. This leads to some intriguing questions pertaining to plant design. How will the plant of the future be created and managed? How will data be used for production? How will plants be structured over the next decade?

According to a survey conducted by PwC, just 33% of manufacturing companies consider themselves to be digitally advanced in their production processes. By 2020, 72% of manufacturers intend to augment their digitalization levels and expect to be able to be ranked as digitally advanced

FDT Group announced the release of its updated developer tools, known as Common Components, which are designed to enhance interoperability while accelerating time to market.

FDT Group announced the release of its updated developer tools, known as Common Components, which support the FDT 2.1 standard. Common Components is used to simplify FDT/DTM and FDT/FRAME development in compliance with the FDT 2.1 specification. The tools are designed to enhance interoperability while accelerating time to market.

FDT 2.1 specification’s release in 2018 set the FDT Group’s Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) transformation path to connect the intelligent enterprise based on industry-driven feedback across the process, hybrid, and discrete manufacturing markets. FDT 2.1 is also forward and backwards

Surveys by MESA International indicate the manufacturing industry is making steady progress toward the fourth industrial revolution through smart manufacturing.