Glossary

What is an IoT Platform?

An IoT Platform is an integrated set of technologies that enables organizations to design, develop, deploy, and operate IoT applications at scale. IoT applications use advanced analytics – including AI and machine learning – to manage, control, and otherwise leverage data ingested from a large network (or multiple networks) of internet-connected devices (internet of things). As such, IoT applications are essentially a class of enterprise AI applications. Developing and deploying this class of applications at scale involves significantly greater challenges than previous generations of enterprise software, and requires a new technology stack.

In order to provide a complete solution, an IoT platform must deliver the same capabilities as an enterprise AI platform that can be summarized as 10 core capabilities:

• Data aggregation: Unified federated data image across the business
• Multi-cloud computing and data persistence
• Edge computing
• Platform services and data virtualization for accessing data in place
• Enterprise semantic model
• Enterprise microservices
• Enterprise data governance and security
• System simulation using AI and dynamic optimization algorithms
• Open platform
• Common platform for collaborative development between software developers and data scientists

If any of these 10 core capabilities is missing, a product cannot be considered an IoT platform.

Why is an IoT Platform Important?

Many use cases across multiple industries are related to IoT. In asset-intensive industries such as electric power utilities, oil and gas, chemicals, telecommunications, aerospace, and manufacturing, many use cases focus on monitoring, managing, and optimizing the performance of vast numbers of physical assets. A classic example is the utility industry’s smart grid, for which AI-enabled IoT applications ingest and analyze massive volumes of data from smart meters and other grid assets.

To achieve transformative value from AI-powered IoT applications requires deploying them at scale to address numerous high-value use cases across an organization’s entire value chain. An IoT platform provides the tools and capabilities that enable organizations to address the considerable challenges in building and operating these applications efficiently and effectively, with minimal time, effort, and overhead.

C3 AI’s IoT Platform: C3 AI Platform

C3 AI is the leading provider of enterprise AI and IoT software technology to drive and accelerate digital transformation. C3 AI provides the C3 AI^® Platform, a complete, end-to-end platform for designing, developing, deploying, and operating enterprise AI and IoT applications at industrial scale. With the C3 AI Platform, organizations can accelerate development of enterprise AI and IoT applications on cloud platforms like AWS and Azure 25-fold and deploy them in one-tenth the time of other approaches. The C3 AI Platform has been recognized by industry analysts, including Forrester and Omdia, as a leading IoT platform.

Leading global organizations across multiple industries use the C3 AI Platform to develop and operate enterprise AI applications that address a growing number of IoT use cases – including grid optimization, predictive maintenance, asset reliability, and inventory optimization. Organizations such as Shell, the US Department of Defense, and Koch Industries, use the C3 AI Platform to drive digital transformation initiatives that significantly reduce costs, increase asset availability and reliability, improve human safety, and enhance customer satisfaction.