Intel’s Frank Jones: Moore’s Law will guide the internet of things revolution (video)

7 Jul 2015

The general manager of Intel's internet of things division Frank Jones said that Moore's Law will continue to be a driving force when the IoT revolution takes hold

Moore’s Law will still be a driving force when the internet of things (IoT) revolution is in full swing five years from now, according to the general manager of Intel’s IoT division Frank Jones.

It emerged in recent weeks that Ireland has been selected as the latest location for Intel’s latest IoT Innovation & Development Ignition Lab.

The aim of the lab is to collaborate with local companies to develop technologies for the IoT and collaborations are already underway that will see Dublin become the world’s first truly IoT city. The lab is already collaborating with established Irish brands like Kingspan, Keenans and Glen Dimplex, to name but a few.

Jones said that Intel is hard at work making the IoT happen, firstly through chips like the Quark processor and the Galileo dev board, but also through gateways that are plug-and-play and easy to use.

The perfect storm

“This is the perfect storm. The key to the internet of things is creating end-to-end solutions that solve problems at the end of the day,” he said.

“However, right now 85pc of deployed systems are disconnected from the internet. The internet of things gateway is the first step to connect sensors with the internet and cloud. We will have to create horizontal standards-based solutions for the industry. That is going to take all of us working together to achieve this reality.”

Jones said that the perfect storm can be best summed up by the reduction in the cost of sensors, the cost of bandwidth and the cost of processors.

“Driven by Moore’s Law the cost of sensors has been reduced by 60pc over the last five years.

“The real issue is all of these things together make it cost effective and ubiquitous and it’s all coming together to create this next revolution.”

IoT will disrupt traditional business models

Industry analysts estimate there will be 50bn connected devices in the world by 2020.

To date, Intel has established five Ignition Labs in Europe and the Middle East, including in the UK, Sweden, Germany, Turkey and Israel.

The lab is the latest investment in Intel’s history in Ireland since it started here in 1989.

Jones said that in building an IoT ecosystem connecting sensors with gateways to the wider internet, standards will be required.

“We ultimately need to figure out standards that let devices connect seamlessly in a working environment.

“We need to help business get their mindset around new things and new ways of doing businesses. In the lab there are no boundaries, no barriers, just tech people and business people working together to solve business problems.”

Jones said that at the heart of this perfect storm will be Moore’s Law that the number of sensors on an integrated circuit will double every year.

“I think what you are going to see is we are still going to be driving Moore’s Law in five years’ time.

“That’s where Intel will need to keep moving and investing to ensure that we make things more power efficient and create the compute power and solutions for opportunities we don’t know exist today.

“At our core Intel will still be keeping Moore’s Law alive.”

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com