AI, IoT and blockchain are among the exponential technologies driving the next wave of digital transformation. They have the potential to improve current business processes, create new business models, and disrupt various industry sectors. They bring to the digital world his three of the greatest possibilities of human endeavour: feelings, thoughts and memories. Sensation through IoT sensing, thinking through AI algorithms, and memory through blockchain registers.
AI, IoT and blockchain may have developed independently, but the convergence of these technologies in today’s scenario cannot be overlooked. Not only is it facilitating the development of new business models, it is revolutionizing the way humans interact with the world.
Together they unlock each other’s potential
Traditional IT systems have evolved in terms of interaction, information processing, and computation, making them ideal for AI, IoT, and blockchain to work together. IoT provides touchpoints for data exchange and real-world interactions, blockchain provides infrastructure, and AI optimizes processes and enables intelligent decision-making. They complement each other in many ways and when combined can create several opportunities for your business.
Convergence of Blockchain and IoT: The growth of IoT-based applications provides a layer for interaction between technology and the real world. However, it comes with a set of major challenges such as security, privacy, scalability and maintainability. IoT devices must operate on high-performance architectures, even when performing trivial tasks such as capture, processing, and communication. Using blockchain technology with his IoT provides features such as decentralization, persistence, anonymity and auditability, making these tasks easier to perform and creating trust in the system. Blockchain makes it easy for IoT applications to store and access data remotely from any location, ensuring the privacy of data stored on networks.
Convergence of blockchain and AI: Advances in AI and blockchain are driving new developments in the digital journey of enterprises. Blockchain can provide explainability, privacy, and trust for AI-based applications, while AI can solve the personalization and governance problems of blockchain-based technologies while enhancing scalability and security. Authenticity is one of the main advantages of using blockchain technology, and along with AI, you can ensure confidence in the integrity of your data and improve your recommendations. AI can also help companies understand and perceive business challenges and enable decision making.
Convergence of AI and IoT: IoT networks consist of a myriad of connected devices and are exposed to numerous vulnerabilities within the network, including data theft. AI-powered systems can defend against these malware and hacking attempts. AI can also enhance the capabilities of IoT networks by making them smarter and more autonomous. Blockchain can further enhance network security by restricting data access on the network.
Possibilities of these technological cross-junctions
The convergence of AI, IoT, and blockchain has opened up opportunities to explore use cases across multiple industries, such as healthcare, finance, accounting, and even the personal space.
health care: Wearable devices equipped with sensors that monitor a person’s health in real time and anticipate adversity in advance is one of many use cases. Connected devices and virtual assistants can notify patients of adverse conditions, cross-reference calendars with physician calendars, and automatically schedule physician appointments. Blockchain ensures secure and accurate digital medical histories for physician reference and enables secure payments.
Manufacturing: Using a variety of IoT-powered production monitoring solutions, manufacturing professionals can remotely obtain the digital status of all machines running in a factory and predict production capacity. With AI, you can ensure proactive fault identification, predictive maintenance, and appropriate resource and capacity planning. You can also proactively and securely purchase raw materials and machine parts via blockchain in a secure manner.
automation: Leveraging these revolutionary technologies, technologies like virtual assistants and chatbots can become much more proactive in performing automated tasks in the home space, driving a car, making secure payments, and more.
Future trends
AI, IoT, and blockchain can be potentially transformative on their own within silos, but together they can be more powerful. Combining these three revolutionary technologies can make the world a better place by facilitating the development of new business models, products, and services across a wide range of applications.
(The author is Prashanth Kaddi, Partner, Consulting, Deloitte India, When Naveen K, Manager, Consulting – Analytics and Cognitive, Deloitte India The views expressed in this article are our own)
