The rise of the industrial internet

The Industrial Internet, at its most basic level, encompasses the use of sensors embedded into machines and accessed through global networks. In November, GE announced that it would demonstrate the potential efficiency gains of the Industrial Internet by investing $1.5bn to bring its machines online.

‘The reality today is for very low costs, you can connect instruments to a central location and have the information online, immediately, at all times,’ said Rich Carpenter, chief technology strategist at GE Intelligent Platforms. ‘You can have a set of analytics that push the right information out to the right people…it’s a very exciting trend.’

But this trend isn’t new. Companies have been integrating machines with sensors and wider networks for years. Carpenter, however, argues that its capabilities have not yet been fully realised. He notes that inefficiencies in machinery are now much greater at the system level. This has led to complexities in the system that humans have difficulty dealing with.