IBM is teaming up with silicon chip manufacturer ARM Holdings Plc in a deal that will see its cloud platform watch and analyze data from billions of connected “things”.

IBM said it will integrate its Internet of Things (IoT) technology with ARM’s chips, which means devices running on ARM mbed chips will be able to connect directly to the IBM IoT Foundation analytics platform. All products and devices powered by ARM mbed-enabled chips can automatically register with the IBM platform, allowing for data to be delivered to the cloud for analysis. In addition, manufacturers now have the option of delivering events to users, such as alert sending or remote equipment control, in case devices breakdown.

The IBM IoT Foundation platform offers dozens of tools for data to be managed and analyzed, plus security systems to protect against unauthorized intrusions, and access to the IBM Bluemix platform-as-a-service to handle data flow.

The companies declared that “this fusion will allow huge quantities of data from devices such as industrial appliances, weather sensors and wearable monitoring devices to be gathered, analyzed and acted upon.”

The partnership is a big one for IBM, which is competing against General Electric to be the choice platform for managing and understanding the billions of devices that make up the IoT. ARM is already a huge player in the IoT, currently licensing around one billion chips per quarter for connected devices with its mbed project, it told Fast Company. But mbed is about more than just building chips – under the initiative, ARM is also building an IoT operating systems, special computer servers for ‘things’ to connect, and programmatic tools for developers to write IoT apps.

That’s why this partnership is so important, because ARM is effectively building IBM’s cloud inside the system, allowing those using ARM chips for mBed IoT devices to use IBM BlueMix to store and analyze the data.

Alongside this announcement, IBM also unveiled a new service called IoT for Electronics, the first of several such services its planning to release for industry specific IoT products. The company says IoT Electronics will provide better data gathering capabilities to electronics manufacturers, which can be combined with other data to deliver real-time analytics.

“We’re excited to work with IBM because we believe that an effective IoT solution should be built from the ground up — from chipset through services — and is by far the best choice to have a complete end-to-end solution,” said Earl Qua, Vice President of Ionics. “Working with IBM we have tapped into our respective company’s expertise to create a platform that is built and customized for the unique nature in which companies are utilizing IoT.”

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