AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM and Intel have all teamed up to form the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), a nonprofit organisation dedicated to the Internet of Things, to ‘improve the integration of the physical and digital worlds’.
The not-for-profit group formed by the tech giants will work to bring worlds of operational technology and information technology together.
One of the main goals of the consortium will be to create engineering standards to break down the barriers of technology silos in the adoption of industrial internet.
The IIC will work to identify open interoperability standards and define common architectures so that the devices, sensors and networks members can communicate with each other and ensure secured data exchange among them.
“An ecosystem of companies, researchers and public agencies is emerging to help drive adoption of Industrial Internet applications, a foundational element for accelerating the Internet of Things (IoT),” read the statement announcing the formation of the consortium.
“The IIC is a newly formed not-for-profit group with an open membership that will take the lead in establishing interoperability across various industrial environments for a more connected world.”
The IIC will be managed by the Object Management Group, a Boston-based nonprofit trade association dedicated to computer industry standards.
AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM and Intel, being the founding members, will each hold permanent seats on an elected IIC steering committee, along with four other elected members. The committee will help organizations to capitalise on the IoT by providing them leadership, guidance and governance.
