Seeing massive growth potential in the Internet of Things (IoT) sector, technology giant IBM on March 31 announced that it will invest US$3 billion over the next four years to create a new IoT unit. Big Blue also announced that it will work with The Weather Company to provide weather data to unmanned aerial vehicles, buildings, and smartphones sensors, so operators of these IoT-based facilities and devices will be able to make the right business decisions.
Autonomous vehicles will enter mass production by 2020 as more and more major auto makers in recent years have committed to their R&D, according to Topology, a division of TrendForce. Furthermore, the scale of the market will likely surpass a million vehicle mark by 2035.
Harrison Po, consultant of Topology, a division of TrendForce, said SoftBank’s Pepper has opened another window of opportunity in the market for smart service robots. In the future, the market size of this kind of robots will grow with new and diverse applications. The sales of service robots, for example, has surpassed 5 million units and is projected to grow by 20% in 2015.