5 Companies Building the Internet of Things

If you’re currently wearing a smart device of any kind, then you’re involved with the Internet of Things. Even so, the general consensus in the IoT space is that there isn’t an adequate infrastructure in place to support it the IoT at scale. In other words, we don’t even have the means to turn all of the lights on yet.

Still, it is logical to question what scale means in this case since the IoT reportedly already processes 2.5 quintillion byes of data everyday.

In a basic sense, though this is true, there are a lot of things that it doesn’t do yet. Because of this, we’ve compiled this list of companies that appear to have the goods to get it there, so to speak.

H2O.ai- At its’ core, H2O is a provider of several different, yet interrelated open-source software products that are designed to make it as easy as possible for everyone to use Machine Learning for large-scale data modeling and analysis. More specifically, all of their products are built to discover trends in massive amounts of data that it does not make sense for humans to analyze. Given the fact that they are reportedly supported by around 14,000 partners including Microsoft, IBM, and NVIDIA, they just might be the most popular company working to do this. Furthermore, due to this still widening reach as well as their rapid growth to being a global firm, a particular implication arises related to the IoT. Since H2O’s products are already fully open-source, if they were to partner with other companies that were working on the data transfer layer of the IoT, then we just might have the start of a workable foundation for the next iteration of the IoT when it reaches far beyond its’ current daily data transactional numbers.

2. Fetch.ai– Fetch’s main product offering is the same as H2O’s and yet different in at least one major way. Imagine a world in which every transaction and actually, every decision is automated. In an interview with the WhatBitcoinDid podcast(referenced below), Fetch’s CTO explained this through the context of industries that sometimes have more supply than demand like the hotel industry and how certain rooms in certain hotels are frequently empty. In that case, Fetch’s network of autonomous agents would reach out to the hotel, which would ideally also be represented by one or more autonomous agents, and get the rooms sold to someone who might not actually know about them without the help of the Fetch network. What this equates to is AI systems transacting with AI systems to benefit humans because both sides are looking for a resolution that is mutually beneficial and both sides are looking to transact as cheaply and efficiently as possible. In an overarching sense, if Fetch can demonstrate the ability to facilitate such activity on a truly large scale, meaning to the tune of billions of transactions, then their network may end up becoming the key framework for the IoT.

The fact is, they might not need to make that case alone.

3. SingularityNET- SingularityNET makes a strong and similar case on the subject of laying the groundwork for a usable and effective Internet of Things. At this point, their developers plan to offer a platform that is applicable to many different ledger-like systems at once. It’s essential that they get this right since SingularityNET is shaping this layer to be the ideal place for machines to communicate with each other non-stop, across blockchains and other types of systems. The key technology behind this is its’ open-source protocol that is designed to support any and all AI projects at once. If you find yourself questioning how such an idea might work when the number of companies hits the hundreds or even thousands, consider the daemon.

No, we’re not talking about a mailer daemon.

In SingularityNET’s case, its’ daemons appear to be mini-Artificial Narrow Intelligence systems that can run much of the network’s operations on their own, as well as delegate requests from partner servers and APIs to other parts of the platform when they need to do so. What is most important about any of the daemons’ responsibilities, however, is the handling of all network payments so that the main chain does not become clogged with them. In this sense, they are correlated with sidechains to a point.

Because of both these daemons and the SN platform’s interoperability, perhaps Fetch will find itself swept into the SingularityNET network one day due to the fact that it has similar goals, but only one blockchain-like system to achieve them on. Working int the favor of both of these possibilities is the fact that SingularityNET has the weight of numerous powerful partnerships behind its’ efforts, which has resulted in a large amount of capital to fuel its’ research initiatives. Given that this includes about 15 AI firms as well, even though SingularityNet is quite an early stage project, things seem to be going well. If we then circle back to the IoT, we can possibly make the same conclusion if SingularityNet’s daemons prove to be efficient when the network includes a large number of partners and therefore, partner services.

4. Outlier Ventures- There had to be at least one Venture Capital fund on here. While Outlier is likely not the only one in the VC space to be dedicated to projects involving the Blockchain, AI, and the IoT, they may be one of only a few VCs who are focusing exclusively on projects aiming to connect these technologies. What this appears to mean is that they are doing everything in their power to educate others on the benefit of connecting the Blockchain with AI systems. If you follow their content, then you’ll find consistent, informed insights on even more companies that could fit into lists like these.

5. Numerai- Numerai stands out as the anomaly on this list, mostly because they are widely known for their prediction marketplace that, powered by AI and the Blockchain, allows anyone to upload predictions and stake crypto on them, earning a positive reputation as these predictions are proven to be accurate. Hearing this, it is reasonable to wonder how a prediction market for hedge funds and aspiring investors relates to scaling the Internet of Things.

If we circle back to what the IoT is in its’ most basic form, then it’s actually easier to see where this connection exists. In a general sense, the current iteration of the Internet of Things can be defined as a massive data feed in which machines “talk to each other through sharing said data.

Numerai’s Erasure is like a microcosm of it.

It takes things a step further by bypassing any sort of digital ledger in favor of the Interplanetary File System for data storage. By doing so, it theoretically avoids the latency involved with a blockchain-based system, in favor of inheriting any issues that might arise with a Directed Acyclic Graph-based system. If you’re not familiar with what a DAG is, start with the idea that it is said to be able to handle a higher volume of transactions in a better way than the blockchain, but has not always been able to do so thus far. Because of this, in the end, Numerai stands as a major question mark in this group until the effectiveness of its’ Erasure protocol is proven over a long period of time.

In the end, nothing is actually certain with any of these firms because all of these technologies, including the IoT itself, are still early-stage. As noted in the Numerai section, only time will tell if any of these projects pan out. Businesses fail everyday, especially when they are based on technologies that run into significant issues once they truly begin to hit the growth stage. While this list is very short, it’s only the beginning of our analysis of all things IoT. In the near future, we’ll delve into these companies and more in dedicated posts that aim to dig further into where the IoT is headed and how major issues related to its’ scaling might be prevented. These future posts will include technologies like SingularityNET’s OpenCog framework, which underpins their entire platform, as well as a deeper dive into the idea of autonomous agents. Until then, check out our list of resources below.