According to Gartner , artificial intelligence, digital twins, and continuous adaptive security are the foundations of the next generation of digital business models and ecosystems. Mechanical engineering, industry, commerce and others are focusing on IoT, AI, Edge and the cloud.

The IoT in particular has grown dramatically worldwide in recent years - according to Gartner, 8.4 billion devices will already be connected by the end of 2017. Vodafone , one of the market’s drivers, has identified five trends in its 2018 IoT Barometer : the Internet of Things is expected to enable new business processes and open up business opportunities - which in itself is nothing new. Vodafone nevertheless also makes it clear that IoT functionalities will shape IT as a whole and that IoT security solutions and low power wide area network (LPWAN) technologies such as NarrowBand IoT are on the rise. Both Vodafone and Telekom are deploying NB-IoT here in Germany, and there are alternative solutions such as the Sigfox network .

According to Forrester , the trend toward increasingly integrating IoT into day-to-day business is also resulting in more edge components, that is, the redeployment of functional intelligence into the devices themselves. The researchers also believe that 2018 will also see a consolidation of the platform market .