Data Center Earth & the Industrial IoT Revolution

The walls of the data center are beginning to dissolve, and as Peter Levine correctly stated, "The entire world is becoming the domain of IT." This is being driven by the Industrial IoT revolution and an increasing number of intelligent machines that are operating out at the edge. These machines are generating massive amounts of data that will need to be captured, analyzed, and acted on. In a sense, we need to take everything we have learned inside the data center and begin to apply it to everything outside the data center.

The Industrial IoT revolution is about moving from a computer on every desk, a computer in every home, and a computer in every pocket — to a computer in every machine. Going forward, every machine across your enterprise will become a smart, connected machine. And, our IT teams will be asked to manage these machines — ATMs, warehouse robots, construction fleets, etc.

The good news is that what we have learned around managing compute, network, and storage gear in the data center can be applied here. We need to begin to apply DevOps concepts, automation, orchestration, and our security best practices to these advanced machines. This is exactly why Hitachi Vantara has built Lumada – our Industrial IoT platform. Lumada enables IT teams to manage the increasing number of smart connected machines that are popping up across the enterprise and to derive value from the mountains of data these machines are generating.

Today’s data centers are fully mature, and more and more workloads are moving to the cloud. It is becoming harder and harder to gain a business advantage in the data center. The data center has essentially become a tax on the business. Because of this, IT is no longer the same powerful competitive weapon that it was in the last decade. This is precisely why we need to aim our IT expertise and technologies at our warehouses, factories, and industrial operations.

In fact, many of today’s industrial operations have the lowest revenue per employee. Industrial IoT technologies will enable us to flip this. Hitachi is working to arm IT teams with technologies that will empower them to design highly efficient industrial operations that generate tremendous value for the business.

In many ways Industrial IoT is the new ERP. ERP systems came to life in the 1990s. They provided tremendous value by integrating our business systems. Hitachi believes that Industrial IoT can add 10X or even 100X the value by integrating our operational systems.

Going forward, all Hitachi equipment will come with software and Lumada awareness. This is very similar to your home printer coming with software drivers and WiFi connectivity. Industrial IoT means truly combining smart assets, intelligent software, and operational know-how. No company on the planet excels across these three dimensions the way Hitachi does. And, our deep industrial expertise is being packaged into compelling high-value software components that can power your industrial operations and smart, distributed ecosystems.

When you think about it, Hitachi actually has an unfair advantage heading into the Industrial IoT revolution. We are the only company on the planet that can provide a complete end-to-end Industrial IoT stack — including the turnkey IT infrastructure, the IoT platform, the AI and advanced analytics software... and the self-driving dump truck. And the bullet train, and the world's fastest elevators, and the cancer fighting technologies, etc.  

Hitachi is not new to Industrial IoT. Just as Amazon and Google were building and consuming cloud computing technologies internally for 10+ years before they shared them with the world, Hitachi has been delivering Industrial IoT solutions for the past 10+ years. Today we have over six million connected machines, including 450,000 elevators, 230,000 construction vehicles, and thousands of MRI machines. Each of these machines has hundreds, and in many cases thousands, of sensors. We also have the deep security expertise required to digitally protect a nuclear power plant or bullet train system.

Hitachi realizes that device connectivity is table stakes and that this revolution will ultimately be fought and won in the AI layer. We have been making massive investments in this area and are already introducing a tremendous amount of innovation around robotics, AI, and augmented reality. We are moving so fast that we are actually generating more than one patent per hour globally. While our competitors are making massive investments in marketing and Super Bowl ads, Hitachi is making massive investments in the technologies that will enable you to become the Henry Ford of the Industrial IoT revolution.

In the last century, electricity brought machines and factories to life. In this century, software is bringing machines and factories to life in entirely new ways. And more importantly, in the last century, we measured our machines by horsepower and their physical capabilities. In this century, we will measure our machines by brainpower and their ability to help us make decisions.

There has never been a better time to be in the high-tech space. Over the next decade, new software will ripple through every facet of industrial operations — manufacturing, deploying, and operating smart machines, and the ways we service those machines. There will be billions of lines of new software written that will unlock trillions of dollars of revenue.

Apple is the number one technology company in the world today. Apple rode the PC and mobile wave to that spot. Amazon is number three today, and many people expect Amazon to ride the e-commerce and cloud computing wave to the top spot in the next few years. Hitachi is number seven today, and we intend to ride the Industrial IoT wave to the number one spot within the next decade.

The Industrial IoT revolution is real. We have spent the last 70 years building and deploying software that connects and empowers humans. We will spend the next 70 years building and deploying software that connects and empowers machines. Enjoy the revolution.