On the opening day of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platform provider Advantech's online conference, company representatives and other industry experts gathered to discuss new developments on the horizon for IIoT, artificial intelligence (AI), and industrial networking. In particular, many sessions focused on the hurdles that still remain if IIoT and associated Industry 4.0 technologies are to see ubiquitous adoption in the future. The Advantech Connect conference continues online through May 6. Perhaps the greatest take-away from the first day of the event was that, while the real bedrock of value provided by IIoT is to be found in the data it generates, nothing can be attained from it unless that data is effectively gathered, communicated, and analyzed. Through the improvements these technologies enable in data gathering, transmission, and analytics, Advantech envisions industry moving beyond IIoT and toward an Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) that allows cloud-delivered applications to make real-time, autonomous decisions at the device level.

The term "industrial Internet of Things" has a more muted-sounding promise of driving operational efficiencies through automation, connectivity and analytics. But the focus of IIoT -- on industry at large -- is broader. Here, we take a comprehensive view, rounding up 20 IIoT leaders and pioneers, drawing on the feedback from industry analysts and consultants. The focus here is not on vendors offering, say, a cloud-based platform for monitoring industrial machines but on the companies that themselves are using IIoT technology to drive their business forward. For the sake of this feature, we focus on organizations that use connected technology in tandem with cloud-based analytics to drive efficiencies and launch new business models.