Samsung’s $1.2 Billion Investment in “Internet of Things” May Rock the Mobile Device Market

Believe it or not, Internet of Things (IoT) is a real term used among businesses and academics, and Samsung is looking to invest 1.2 Billion in the U.S. for such a “thing.” IoT is used to describe practically everything that has to do with the internet, but mostly, it focuses physical devices that collects and pushes data through a network.

The Wall Street Journal mentions that “Samsung had announced prior initiatives around the internet of things. But executives said the new funding represents an acceleration of the company’s attempt to compete with Intel Corp., Qualcomm Inc. and others to create chips and other hardware that manufacturers can incorporate into gadgets to make them internet-connected. Predictions vary widely, but IDC has forecast that the global internet of things market will be worth $1.7 trillion by 2020.”

The investment makes sense for Samsung more than it would for a company like Apple since Samsung sees itself as a hardware company. Like Qualcomm, Samsung focuses on the integral and physical portion of smart technology, and they’ve been preforming much better in the market as of late with their Artik chips.

The money will not all be spent on developing just new chips, however. It will be split between start-ups in the U.S. that use Samsung technology and research centers, which does include a chip fabrication lab.

By making all devices IoT enabled, Samsung’s seeks to help older generations to live independently. But old people aren’t the only thing Samsung looks to make independent. They also want cars and drones to be better at functioning on their own rather than having a human operating them.

Ultimately, the investment by Samsung isn’t a friendly one to other competitors since all the IoT technology is Samsung dependent and that’s because their chips, like the Artik chip, work on multiple levels. The Artik chip isn’t only just a physical chip that supports all of IoT, but it also works as a cloud.

The biggest problem for Samsung and the reason for the large investment is that Samsung is still trying to figure out how IoT works, or at least, the best way to utilize it. If Samsung’s hopes become reality and they are able to get most devices on IoT, Samsung may become the biggest cash cow in the internet hardware department.