Many of the IoT devices will primarily connect to other machines. As a scale comparison, let's assume every human has a smartphone. That's about 5 billion devices. The IoT will eventually contain at least 10 times more devices—50 billion devices. When this will happen differs a bit among the predictions, but we will get there in the end.

One of the driving forces of this growth is machine-to-machine communication.

Factories are already moving to a greater degree of automation, and this tendency will only grow as more and more options become available. Logistics inside factories can increase greatly with wide sensor net deployments and big data analytics for continuously improving processes.

Modern cars use processors for nearly every possible function, from lights and dashboard functions to window lifts. The next step will be connecting cars to the Internet and, eventually, self-driving cars that will communicate all sensor data to centralized coordinating servers...