The IDC report, Industry 4.0 and Beyond: How 5G–IoT Integration Enables Sustainable Operations, provides an illustrative overview of the current landscape of how Industry 4.0 is helping organisations achieve their sustainability goals in Asia/Pacific.
About 12.4% of telecom carrier respondents in Asia/Pacific consider Industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT) as one of the important reasons for rolling out 5G services according to IDC’s 2022 Telecom Carrier Transformation Survey.
According to the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, sustainability is the fundamental business strategy for the future. These involve supporting initiatives, such as smart manufacturing, energy-efficient construction, and low-impact industrialisation. Industry 4.0 fills this gap by fusing traditional manufacturing processes with digital technology, AI, and IoT.
IDC forecasts that Asia/Pacific 5G connections, both mobile subscriber and IoT connections, will grow from 574 million in 2021 to 3,234 million in 2025, growing at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 87.9%. According to the IDC Carrier Transformation Survey 2022, most telecom carrier companies saw vital industries, including manufacturing, Smart Cities with smart mobility, and smart buildings, as the most critical use cases for the introduction of 5G.
"The shift to a greener, lower carbon future will be made possible through digitisation and connectivity," says Piyush Singh, IDC senior market analyst for telecommunications and IoT in Asia Pacific. "One of the concepts in Industry 4.0 is efficiency equals energy saving. Anything and everything organisations do to save energy ultimately increase efficiency,” Singh ends.
5G plays a key role in bringing a whole set of new ecosystems for organisations, which can help in achieving their sustainability goals in much easier and more robust ways. Manufacturing facilities all throughout Asia/Pacific have implemented private or dedicated networks for controlling various pieces of equipment on-premises. Unstable wireless communication and latency are the barriers for the adoption of digital transformation in any firm which can be solved with the help of 5G. IoT devices require very dependable communication, which may also be provided via private 5G network easily.
