Having failed to gain much of a foothold in the ARM-dominated world of mobile phones, Intel Corp. is eyeing smaller targets – it wants to get its chips inside the Internet of Things, as it explained at an “IoT Insights” event this week.

Intel seems to be at a disadvantage as it enters the race. ARM chips rule the mobile roost because they’re considered to be more powerful and less power-hungry than Intel’s Atom chips. But in the Internet of Things, the challenge is even more difficult as processors need to be even smaller, and consume even less power than those used in smartphones.

Which is exactly why the markets Intel’s chosen to target put less of an emphasis on low power, and more on data processing capabilities – an area where Intel has considerable expertise. At the event, it launched its new IoT Gateway, a platform designed to gather data from numerous disparate sources and embedded sensors and feed it into data centers and services.

Intel has put a lot of work into its IoT platform in an effort to cover all the bases, and it’s leveraging an ecosystem of partners to help. For example, it’s teamed up with McAfee to handle security, while Wind River Edge Management System helps connect to the cloud. Software building blocks rely on Intel API and Intel Mashery solutions, while Intel’s cloud analytics software is integrated to help support IoT development kits. And of course, Intel’s own processors serve as the engine to power it all.

Intel also understands its new platform is meaningless if it’s not implemented anywhere, which is why it’s teamed up with companies like Dell Inc. and Accenture Plc. to design and build real solutions using its IoT platform.

The news comes just weeks after Intel created a brand new business division to hop on board the IoT hype, born out of an IoT “working group” it first set up last year.

That’s not to say Intel doesn’t face any competition in this field. It does, and its solution will go head to head with a similar platform being developed by its rival Qualcomm Inc. Teams have been picked and battle lines have already been drawn in the emerging IoT, but the space is still very new and quite chaotic, and it’ll be some time before a clear winner emerges.

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