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Juniper Research has published a new study that concluded that the global number of Industrial IoT connections would hit 36.8 billion in 2025, from just 17.7 billion in 2020. The overall growth rate will be 207%. The research showed smart manufacturing as the primary growth sector for Industrial IoT and could account for 22 billion connections in the next five years.

The new research is titled, Industrial IoT: Future Market Outlook, Technology Analysis & Key Players 2020-2025.

It predicted that 5G and Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) networks would turn everything around by creating an attractive service to the manufacturing industry, to create the ‘smart factory’ concept. It will enable real-time data transmission and power high connection densities to allow highly-autonomous operations in manufacturing.

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5G will drive Smart Factories

The report talks about private 5G services as a pivotal way to maximize the value of smart factories. The network will be leveraged to enable high-efficiency levels of autonomy in operations. The near-instantaneous transmission of data is what will be behind the devices.

5G networks will be very valuable when used to transmit large amounts of data in environments where the number of connections is high or large amounts of data are generated. 

In turn, manufacturers can use this to reduce their operating budget through increased efficiency. 

Software revenue will contribute the most

The research predicts that more than 80% of the global industrial IoT market value will be because of software spending in the next five years. That will push software budgets to about $216 billion. Software tools use machine learning to analyze data and identify vulnerabilities in the network.

According to Scarlett Woodford, the research author, the manufacturers will have to be cautious and resist the temptation to interconnect everything. They should focus on efficiency gains instead, in incremental ways.

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