A prioritized potential framework for combined computing technologies: IoT, Machine Learning, and blockchain

Abstract

In today's scenario, every organization is dependent on the use of computers for automating business and work. The data generated by the organization is huge and has great significance in analyzing the processes. It can be rightfully called as the lifeblood of any organization. The world of computing requires three technologies: Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning (ML), and blockchain. The confluence of these technologies is inevitable in the coming future due to the benefits which are involved in future applications. There is barely any activity today which is cannot apply the use of these three technologies e.g., healthcare, automation, education, etc. IoT can be defined as interconnection of various autonomous devices which are capable of communicating with each other. IoT requires an intermittent Internet connection and address for every device. The user of these devices can remotely monitor and manage by retrieving the information on a handheld device similar to the cellphone. This way, the devices are connected 24/7 and continuously generating data. Challenges of IoT involve the following: security, connectivity problems, and huge data. The devices can be made capable of taking intelligent decisions by incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ML technology. ML is a sub-branch of AI. It has got huge potential to detect the patterns and anomalies in the data which is generated by the wireless sensor nodes in IoT. The advanced decision-making process of ML has already influenced our daily routines, for example: banking, healthcare, gaming, transportation, and space exploration. Challenges faced by ML are the following: security, centralized architecture, and resource limitations. To cover the security aspect of these two technologies, blockchain technology is the perfect answer. It is a decentralized peer-to-peer network which stores the records and transactions in blocks which cannot be altered. This technology secures the communication by eliminating the need for any trusted third party. The blocks are stored in such a manner which makes it impossible to hack or tamper the data by taking control of device or capturing the records. This chapter will present a comprehensive and quantitative analysis of the existing research and how these technologies can be a transformative impact for access to information by the users. The convergence of blockchain, ML, and IoT will provide scalable, secure high-level intellectual functioning that will be the new paradigm of digital information. This book chapter presents futuristic potential of convergence of three technologies and elaborate discussion of the past researches.