Samsung Electronics Co wants to sell the digital brains that will go into billions of smart home appliances, industrial sensors and other Internet-connected gadgets — even if the gadgets are not made by Samsung.
At a technology conference on Tuesday in San Francisco, the South Korean company unveiled a new line of tiny electronic components that combine low-power computer chips, transmitters and software.
Manufacturers can build the components into everything from televisions to parking meters to orthopedic shoes.
The new Artik components are key to Samsung’s goal of becoming a major player in the Internet of Things, which International Data Corp analysts estimated could be a US$3 trillion industry in the next five years.
Samsung president Young Sohn declined to be specific when asked how big the company hopes the Artik business would become. However, he added that analysts have estimated there will be billions of Internet-connected gadgets and machines in coming years.
“Those numbers are subject to change, but anything that is in the billions, I will take that,” Sohn said with a laugh.
Other companies also want a piece of that market. Chipmakers Intel Corp and Qualcomm Inc are also making energy-efficient processors for the coming wave of connected gadgets.
IBM Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co and Cisco Systems Inc want to sell systems for collecting and analyzing data from those gadgets.
Samsung said it would use the Artik components in all the home appliances it makes, but the company hopes other manufacturers will use them too.
Sohn said the components are designed to be compatible with other systems.
Samsung’s SmartThings division also announced a new Internet-based platform that other companies can use to create programs and track data collected from smart devices.
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