The Industry IoT Consortium has produced a new framework document covering the use of artificial intelligence with the Internet of Things.
The IIAIF brings together the IT and OT perspectives and their convergence by considering the various aspects of next-generation artificial intelligence-enabled IIoT systems. The new framework addresses the value proposition, implementation challenges, and architectural decisions and provides exemplary usage scenarios.
Industrial Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the use of AI in applications in industry and a major contributor to value creation in the fourth industrial revolution. AI is being embedded in a wide range of applications, helping organisations achieve significant benefits and empowering them to transform how they deliver value to the market.
The Industrial IoT artificial intelligence framework provides guidance and assistance in the development, training, documentation, communication, integration, deployment and operation of AI-enabled industrial IoT systems. It is aimed at decision makers from IT and operational technology (OT), business and technical from multiple disciplines, including business decision-makers, product managers, system engineers, use case designers, system architects, component architects, developers, integrators and system operators.
“The rapid growth and innovation in AI have unlocked applications that a few years ago were unfeasible,” said Wael William Diab, chair IIC Industrial AI Task Group and secretary IIC Steering Committee. “These advances fuel digital transformation across industry sectors such as manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, finance, and retail. By taking a holistic approach to the emerging requirements and challenges, the framework aims to accelerate responsible adoption of AI-enabled IIoT systems and ultimately bring the benefits of digital transformation to more use cases and sectors.”
The document is structured around the architecture viewpoints as framed in IIC’s Industrial Internet Reference Architecture, namely business, usage, functional and implementation viewpoints. The document discusses the business, commercial and value creation considerations that drive the adoption of AI.
It also elaborates on the concerns that arise from the usage of AI, the use cases in industry, and the ethical, privacy, bias, safety, labor impact and societal concerns related to them. On the technical side, the document describes the architectural, functional and data considerations related to AI and discusses various implementation considerations such as performance, reliability, data properties and security.
The adoption of AI is expected to accelerate in the industry. AI technology will continue to evolve, given the fast-increasing compute power, wider availability of data that can be used for training and the ever-growing sophistication of algorithms. Current IT standards and best practices must evolve to address the unique characteristics of AI itself and specific considerations related to safety, reliability and resilience of IIoT systems. In addition, the growing maturity of organisations about AI will help them appreciate that its benefits far outweigh its risks. The AI standards ecosystem will also continue to evolve, for example the ongoing standards work by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC42 that provides guidance to JTC 1, IEC and ISO committees developing AI standards.
“AI-enabled IIoT systems enable better insights, faster decision making, and more effective operations, and empower organisations to deliver higher value to the market,” said Bassam Zarkout, executive vice president IGnPower Inc. and the chief editor of the IIAIF. “The framework is unique regarding positioning, scope, and real-world use cases. It addresses the practical business, trustworthiness, ethical, and technical considerations of AI with other digital transformation enabling technologies.”
