Rivals ARM and Intel make peace to secure Internet of Things

London: Rival semiconductor giants ARM and Intel have decided to work together to manage networks of connected devices from both firms, clearing a major tentative block to the market growth of the so-called Internet of Things(IoT). This partnership will have a positive impact on the ICT industry. Britain's ARM, a unit of Japan's Softbank Corp, had struck a strategic partnership with Intel to use common standards developed by Intel for managing IoT devices, connections, and data. The announcement came ahead of ARM's annual technical conference set for this week in Silicon Valley. "We see a significant acceleration in terms of how the market will grow in terms of the number of managed devices and the volume of data that moves through these systems," Himagiri Mukkamala, an ARM senior vice president and general manager for its IoT Cloud Services division, told in an interview. Chipmakers are estimated to ship around 100 billion ARM-based IoT devices in the next couple of years, matching the total number of ARM chips shipped in the last 25 years, Mukkamala said. ARM has forecast that as many as 1 trillion IoT devices will be put to work in the world over the next two decades. According to BlueWeave Consulting, the IoT involves connecting simple chips that detect distance, motion, temperature, pressure, and images to be used in an ever wider range of electronics such as lights, parking meters or refrigerators. ARM's pact to adopt Intel standards for securely managing such networks marks a revolution that promises to drive the spread of IoT across many industries. ARM and Intel have competed more broadly in processors for computers, networks, and smartphones. Most of the world's major suppliers of IoT chips count on low-power ARM designs, including NXP, Renesas and Microchip's Atmel, while Intel, known for its powerful data-crunching processors, dominates the cloud data center market, where IoT data are analyzed and processed. Usually, IoT devices come pre-loaded at the factory with network access credentials, leaving them open to many security vulnerabilities. Periodic repairs require manual upgrades by technicians in the field. By permitting their devices to be managed via a single management platform, ARM and Intel are allowing such tasks to be automated to keep them secure. This strategic partnership will have a positive impact on the ICT industry and thus, allow customers using IoT chips based on either company's products to manage them in the same system.