The 10 Coolest IoT Hardware Companies: The 2020 Internet Of Things 50
Innovations in hardware are enabling a variety capabilities in IoT, including AI performance and 5G. What follows are the 10 coolest IoT hardware companies of 2020.
Innovations in hardware are enabling a variety of new use cases and capabilities in IoT, whether it’s improved artificial intelligence performance in power-constrained devices or routers that are prepared for the shift to 5G. These hardware offerings come in at the silicon level from chipmakers and go all the way to complete systems from OEMs. Some of these vendors are enabling more compute inside tiny devices that couldn’t have been imagined a few years ago while others are bringing major performance improvements to edge gateways where all sorts of calculations and analyses are offloaded.
What follows are the 10 coolest IoT hardware companies of 2020.
Advantech
Chairman: Kc Liu
Taipei, Taiwan-based Advantech is making artificial intelligence at the edge a reality with new offerings such as the MIC-710IVA, MIC-720AI and MIC-730AI edge computers, which are enabling high-performance inference and video recording applications in small devices, thanks to Nvidia’s Jetson Nano chips.
Arm
CEO: Simon Segars
Cambridge, U.K.-based Arm is ramping up edge intelligence and IoT management capabilities with new products like the Cortex-M55 and Ethos-U55 chips, which promise massive machine-learning performance gains for IoT devices, and updated IoT platforms like Pelion Connectivity Management 2.0.
Cisco Systems
Chairman, CEO: Chuck Robbins
San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco Systems is expanding its IoT security and networking capabilities with new products like Cyber Vision, a software-based security solution for discovering industrial assets, and new switches and routers like the IR1101, which Cisco says is the “industry’s first 5Gready industrial router.”
CoreKinect
Co-Founder, CEO: Assar Badri
Tempe, Ariz.-based CoreKinect is forging partnerships with heavy hitters in the IT channel ecosystem for its custom-built IoT sensors, which include a U.S. distribution deal with Ingram Micro and a co-development partnership with The Kudelski Group for a miniature secure asset tracking solution.
Dell Technologies
Chairman, CEO: Michael Dell
Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Technologies is helping businesses lay the groundwork for IoT with a variety of edge computing products such as the Dell EMC Streaming Data Platform for big data ingestion and analytics and the Dell EMC Modular Data Center Micro 415 for ruggedized environments.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
President, CEO: Antonio Neri
San Jose, Calif.-based Hewlett Packard Enterprise continues to build out its edge infrastructure capabilities, most recently with the launch of HPE Edgeline IoT Quick Connect, which aims to simplify the real-time monitoring and control of operational technology equipment with hardware and software.
Intel
CEO: Bob Swan
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel is expanding its IoT capabilities through new hardware and software offerings, which include the new Movidius Myriad visual processing unit for power-efficient performance and the OpenVINO toolkit for optimizing artificial intelligence frameworks.
Lenovo
Chairman, CEO: Yang Yuanqing
Beijing-based Lenovo is making a big bet on IoT with a variety of systems and products, ranging from its IoT Solution Bundles that combine hardware, software and services, to new systems like the ThinkSystem SE350 server that is purpose-built for the edge.
Nvidia
President, CEO: Jensen Huang
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia is extending its GPU computing prowess to IoT with new edge platforms like the EGX edge supercomputing platform and new chips like the Jetson Xavier NX, a credit-card-size computing board that provides “server-class performance” in power-constrained devices.
Samsara
Founder, CEO: Sanjit Biswas
San Francisco-based Samsara is turning heads with its hardware and software suite of IoT offerings for fleet monitoring and industrial applications—a business that has propelled the startup to amass more than 10,000 clients, $530 million in capital raised from investors and a $6.3 billion private valuation.