This week’s Smart World Series delivers a renewed focus for the Internet of Things (IoT).  To kick things off, this week’s roundup features how IoT is transforming cities and impacting data centers.

For those who missed this week’s Smart World Series, here’s a chance to catch up on the exciting developments happening in the connected world.  Each week, SiliconANGLE rounds up news regarding smart homes and cars, smart data centers and servers, smart offices and all things related to the Internet of Things.

Smart building projects to boom in 2018

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The IDC Energy Insights released a report predicting that businesses will start investing heavily in smart buildings in the near future.  Project spending for smart buildings is expected to grow from $7.3 billion in 2014 to $21.9 billion in 2018.  One of the main reasons smart buildings are gaining relevance is, aside from reducing energy consumption and providing a healthy workplace environment, it is believed that green or smart buildings can attract the right kind of employees.

Echelon Corp. conducted a survey that sheds more light on the specific goals builders have for including intelligent programs and services. Seventy percent of survey respondents plan to integrate their buildings’ lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), and security systems into one common platform, with one-third of respondents implementing the transition in the next 12-18 months.

Find out more about the impact of the Internet of Things in the enterprise in this week’s Smart City roundup.

How IoT will transform data centers

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Research firm Gartner predicts that the Internet of Things will hugely impact today’s data centers, as more devices connect to the Internet.  The firm estimates that IoT comprises 26 billion units installed by 2020, and IoT product and service suppliers will generate incremental revenue exceeding $300 billion, mostly in services, by that time. Gartner anticipates data centers will soon feel the brunt of the workload, and will need to make adjustments to keep up with the steady stream of Big Data in order to analyze in real-time.

Gartner’s reports states that data centers will face challenges in security, the enterprise, consumer privacy, data itself, storage management, server technologies, and data center networking, and data center managers need to deploy forward-looking capacity management to proactively meet the demands that comes with the connected everything era.

Find out more about Gartner’s report regarding the impact of IoT on data centers as well as how some companies are preparing for the growing stream of data in this week’s Smart Infrastructure roundup.

Tune in next week for more interesting stories, discoveries and innovations in the world of smart and connected things.

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