Intel, Infineon and others have banded together to form the Ambient IoT Alliance dedicated to developing and promoting a global IoT ecosystem.

The alliance wants to facilitate a global ecosystem based on battery-free ambient IoT standards for wifi, Bluetooth and 5G.

Founding members include Atmosic, Infineon, Intel, Pepsi, Qualcomm, VusionGroup and Wiliot.

The ambient IoT has emerged as a transformative technology. The alliance’s mission is to promote and support the development of an open, harmonised and aligned multi-standard ecosystem.

“Ambient IoT is well aligned with Infineon’s strategic focus on IoT and energy leadership and our motto of driving digitalisation and decarbonisation,” said Kamesh Medapalli, senior vice president at Infineon. “We are proud to shape new industry standards like ambient IoT to foster innovation to connect billions of cost-optimised IoT devices securely, while helping to save our precious planet.”

Ambient IoT represents an evolution of IoT in which more everyday battery-less things will be interconnected and integrated. Ambient IoT-enabled devices can detect location, temperature, humidity and more, and communicate with the wireless infrastructure. A nearby mobile device – as well as wireless access points, domestic appliances or other standard gateways – can receive the data generated by ambient IoT-enabled devices if using a compatible standard.

Ambient IoT opens up the ability to leverage those IoT devices with standard wireless radios in smart appliances, mobile devices and wireless access points. This transition enables a large-scale deployment of supply chains, retail channels and healthcare delivery services using ambient IoT technologies.

The vast data generated by ambient IoT will also enable advanced artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Ambient IoT and AI are symbiotic technologies, each unlocking the promise of the other. The simultaneous rise of ambient IoT and AI will give businesses and consumers understanding of the world around them.

Alliance members are focused on the next ambient IoT standards for battery-free, low-cost technologies to connect products and assets, which can also improve AI services in the cloud. For ambient IoT users, the business benefits are massive. Ambient IoT represents the next data platform for leveraging AI and realising the RoI promised by AI. It forms the basis of more efficient supply chains, eliminating operational cost and waste while opening the door to new, enriched customer experiences.

The AIoTA is an open industry group bringing together companies that produce or use IoT tags, devices, networking middleware, applications and cloud services.

“As pioneers of ambient IoT, it has been gratifying to work with other companies that share a common vision,” said Wiliot CTO Alon Yehezkely. “Members of the Ambient IoT Alliance believe in the transformative potential of ambient IoT, bringing their unique perspective and technology expertise.”

The AIoTA foresees rapid ecosystem growth as businesses, telcos, technology vendors and standards bodies join to define ambient IoT technologies within global communication standards, currently under development by the IEEE (wifi), Bluetooth SIG and 3GPP (5G Advanced).

“Ambient IoT is the key to sustainable IoT adoption,” said Atmosic CEO David Su. “It allows us to rearchitect wireless tracking to either use very little power or harvested energy, so everything can remain connected continuously and companies can operate at maximum efficiency.”

As ambient IoT becomes accepted and pervades all industries, the insight derived from analytics will continue to change how businesses operate. In the meantime, for ambient IoT to reach its full potential and transform the world, it takes an alliance of companies with products and technologies that work together.

The Ambient IoT Alliance (AIoTA, www.ambient-iot.org) is a cross-industry group dedicated to facilitating and supporting development of an open, harmonised, multi-standard ecosystem for ambient IoT manufacturers, suppliers, integrators, operators, users and customers. It is not intended to replace standardisation activities in other organisations, but may contribute documentation, support, use cases and more while advocating, promoting and increasing awareness of ambient IoT standards and interoperability.