Intel CTO: Interpreting Data From The ‘Internet of Things’ Is The Future Of Innovation

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In common parlance, “innovations” are inventions or ideas that fulfill a need. Want to protect yourself from the rain? Grab an umbrella. Have to get somewhere fast? Hop in a car.

But sometimes the best innovations do more than simply solve a problem. They lead innovators to see even more new opportunities for further invention.

For Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner, the new problem is data. Loads of it. For example, home appliances are becoming more sophisticated all the time, he told audience members at a Brookings Institution event on innovation and economic growth Wednesday. Many appliances will soon be equipped to talk to one another over the Internet, creating networks of devices that will produce “a tidal wave of data.”

The challenge for American innovators is building the infrastructure to make sense of Big Data — and to be able to present it in ways useful to humans. That might include systems to notify manufacturers automatically when a device malfunctions, applications that monitor citywide energy use, or other new advances. Learning to crunch data gathered from what Rattner calls “the Internet of things” (as opposed to people) is the future of innovation, Rattner said.

“The money is in the data. This is a huge opportunity for the U.S. to step out in front of countries elsewhere in the world,” said Rattner.

“The Chinese are moving very quickly,” he added. “My best Internet-of-things people are actually in my Beijing lab, and there’s tremendous encouragement by the Chinese government on this topic. It means millions of jobs, potentially, and we’ve got to stay on it and not get behind.”

And that means more investment from Washington, said Eric Nakajima, a senior advisor to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

Successful innovation “doesn’t happen naturally,” said Nakajima. “It happens through government intervention.”

Massachusetts is one of the rare success stories of the latest recession. Its 7.4 percent unemployment rate is among the nation’s lowest. Since the end of 2009, the state has created 70,000 jobs.

With 57 percent of Americans in a budget-cutting mood, whether Rattner and Nakajima get expanded federal support is very much in question. Still, said Rattner, there are ways to shore up support for innovation without spending more.

Among them? Building closer ties between industry and academia. Intel has lately taken to creating special innovation centers that have university researchers and industry workers collaborating. That kind of close cooperation can often be more productive from an ideas standpoint than gobs of additional cash.

“It isn’t necessarily that you spend more money,” said Rattner. “If anything, you just create the policy that for every dollar the government spends, industry spends a research dollar. And so I think there are more enlightened policies that don’t necessarily require more spending, just a change in the policy by which you spend.

“The future we live in will be the one we create,” he added. “It’s not coming by Federal Express from some office in the sky. “And we as a nation have to engage in that dialogue. What future do we want? And then we can set about the business of inventing that future.”

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