GE doubles down on Predix at the edge

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GE announced major upgrades to the edge-computing capabilities of its Predix industrial IoT (IIoT) platform, which enables manufacturers to connect and monitor their industrial equipment.

Edge-computing solutions allow data to be stored and processed locally rather than in the cloud or at a remote data center. The upgrades will be available for download on the industrial giant's website sometime during Q1 2018. Here's what's new:

The industrial giant unveiled Predix Edge Manager, which allows manufacturers to use Predix in edge computing settings to connect up to 200,000 local IoT devices. Previously, Predix Manager was only available as a cloud-based service, and companies could only connect a few thousand devices to the tool through edge solutions.
The company also introduced Predix Complex Event Processing, a new data analytics tool that enables faster and more efficient analytics at the edge than the platform previously offered. This should allow manufacturers to reduce down time and latency — the time it takes for devices to send data to and from the location where it's analyzed.
Lastly, GE unveiled Predix Machine, another analytics tool that enables companies to run lightweight versions of software applications at the edge, either in their own virtualized data center infrastructure or on GE's or its partners' hardware.
The updates are part of GE's larger push to give Predix customers more flexibility in how they deploy the platform. Last week, the industrial giant unveiled a new software development kit (SDK) that allows developers to build Predix applications that run on iOS devices, such as the iPad or iPhone. GE aims to make Predix's device management and data analytics tools accessible in as many settings and across as many devices as possible.

While other IIoT platforms also offer deep edge computing and analytics capabilities — Hitachi's Lumada, for instance, was one of the first IIoT platform providers to offer storage and analytics capabilities in edge settings — GE is one of the only companies to offer this breadth of edge capabilities. However, GE's competitors will keep upgrading their own edge analytics capabilities as they race to capture a greater share of the $213 billion that global manufacturers will spend on IoT solutions from now until 2020.

Peter Newman, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on the evolving IoT platform ecosystem that:

Explains the coming growth of the IoT platforms.
Profiles a number of leading platforms.
Highlights the central role platforms play in the IoT.
Looks to the future of the IoT platforms market.