On January 12th, IBM Chairman Samuel J. Palmisano declared the dawning of the “Decade of Smart” in an address to business and civic leaders at the Chatham House in London.
The "Decade of Smart" will be a major market driver for nanotechnologies as the "Internet of Things" will be composed of trillions of micro-electronic sensors providing real time information to human managers. Those micro-chips will be made of nanoscale circuits composed of nanostructured materials manufactured by machines that will be able to steadily increase the number of circuits in a digital device.
The "Decade of Smart" will be a major market driver for nanotechnologies as the "Internet of Things" will be composed of trillions of micro-electronic sensors providing real time information to human managers. Those micro-chips will be made of nanoscale circuits composed of nanostructured materials manufactured by machines that will be able to steadily increase the number of circuits in a digital device.
In Palmisano;s remarks (excerpted below), he described how forward-thinking leaders in business, government and civil society around the world are capturing the potential of smarter systems to achieve economic growth, near-term efficiency, sustainable development and societal progress.
By a smarter planet, IBM means that intelligence is being infused into the systems and processes that enable services to be delivered; physical goods to be developed, manufactured, bought and sold; everything from people and money to oil, water and electrons to move; and billions of people to work and live.
Enormous computational power can now be delivered in forms so small, abundant and inexpensive that it is being put into things no one would recognize as computers: cars, appliances, roadways and rail lines, power grids, clothes; across processes and global supply chains; and even in natural systems, such as agriculture and waterways.
All of these digital devices—soon to number in the trillions—are being connected through the Internet. Some call this the "Internet of Things." All of this pervasive instrumentation enhances our ability to sense and capture what is actually happening in any given system. Where we once inferred, we now know. Where we once interpolated and extrapolated, we can now determine. The historical is giving way to the real-time.
All of these digital devices—soon to number in the trillions—are being connected through the Internet. Some call this the "Internet of Things." All of this pervasive instrumentation enhances our ability to sense and capture what is actually happening in any given system. Where we once inferred, we now know. Where we once interpolated and extrapolated, we can now determine. The historical is giving way to the real-time.
The world is amassing an unimaginable amount of data in the world. In just three years, IP traffic is expected to total more than half a zettabyte. (That's a trillion gigabytes—or a 1 followed by 21 zeroes.)
Lastly, all of that data—the knowledge of the world, the flow of markets, the pulse of societies—can be turned into intelligence, because we now have the processing power and advanced analytics to make sense of it all. With this knowledge we can reduce cost and waste, improve efficiency and productivity, and raise the quality of everything from our products, to our companies, to our cities.
In a study of 439 cities, those that employ transportation congestion solutions—including ramp metering, signal coordination and incident management—reduced travel delays on average by more than 700,000 hours annually and saved nearly $15 million each. In four cities where IBM has helped deploy congestion management solutions, traffic volume during peak periods has been reduced by up to 18 percent, CO2 emissions from motor vehicles were reduced by up to 14 percent, and public transit use increased by up to 7 percent.
Eight hospitals and 470 primary care clinics in Spain implemented smarter healthcare systems across their facilities—by making information available at the point of care to healthcare practitioners and applying insights into organizational performance. They improved clinical results and operational efficiency by up to 10 percent.
Banks and other financial services organizations around the world are achieving new levels of risk control, efficiency and customer service. Microfinancer Grameen Koota's optimized loan tracking and processing has helped increase its customer base from 70,000 to 250,000, while enabling it to predict cash requirements, better allocate resources and broaden access to capital. Payment processing costs at the Bank of Russia have been reduced by 95 percent. And CLS now handles most of the world's currency exchange transactions, securely eliminating the risk from trades worth $3.5 trillion per day, and growing.
A year-long study by the U.S Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found that consumers in smart meter systems saved 10 percent on their power bills, and cut their power use by 15 percent during peak hours. And the potential savings are enormous. One industry study found that even a modest 5 percent drop in peak demand in the U.S. would be equivalent to eliminating 625 power plants and associated delivery infrastructure.
Four leading retailers have reduced supply chain costs by up to 30 percent, reduced inventory levels by up to 25 percent, and increased sales up to 10 percent. They've done so by analyzing customer buying behaviors, aligning merchandising assortments with demand and building end-to-end visibility across their entire supply chain.
IBM is also working with the Brussels-based think tank Security & Defence Agenda to build learning and consensus on issues of security and defense. We're doing it through a large-scale online collaboration that we call a "jam"—which we've found can significantly speed the path to decision and action. SecurityJam, which will take place next month, will gather thousands of subject-matter experts and other thought leaders from business, government and nongovernmental organizations to analyze and clarify new threats to international peace and security. The result will be a set of recommendations that will go to the leadership of the E.U. and NATO in April 2010.
The world economy has stabilized somewhat, although significant challenges remain. Stimulus programs are making an impact, but they cannot and should not last forever. In fact, for the foreseeable future, we will be faced with addressing many pressing global issues with less, rather than more, resources.
Indeed, applying smarter technologies to drive cost out of our legacy systems and institutions—doing more with less—will be critical to our near-term and long-term economic prospects. We will need to extend our infrastructure's useful lifetime, and we will need to ensure that next-generation systems are inherently more efficient, flexible and resilient.
The good news is, it's happening. Every day, we are witnessing myriad smarter approaches in industries, cities and communities around the world. Forward-thinking leaders are creating tangible outcomes and benefits, and are learning how to make their parts of our planet smarter.
The full text is available here: http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/events/sustainable_development/12jan2010/index.html?sa_campaign=message/leaf2/corp/smarterplanet/sjpspeech
