The Berlin-based IOTA Foundation, which is behind a namesake virtual currency that's designed specifically for the rising Internet of Things (IoT) industry, has partnered with Microsoft (XETRA: MSF), Fujitsu, and twenty more companies to launch the first publicly accessible data marketplace for IoT, The Next Web reported.
The public marketplace aims to give connected devices the ability to securely transfer, buy and sell fine-granular and diverse datasets while ultimately facilitating access to data that oftentimes sits unused.
“We are very excited to announce the launch of our data marketplace,” said IOTA co-founder David Sønstebø. “This will act as a catalyst for a whole new paradigm of research, artificial intelligence, and democratization of data.”
IOTA co-founders Dominik Schiener said anyone will be able to make purchases from the marketplace. “What happens in the background is that each visitor is assigned a wallet in the browser with $3 worth of IOTA tokens. With this wallet the user can then purchase data from the marketplace.”
In addition to Microsoft and Fujitsu, a number of other high-profile companies – including Deutsche Telekom (XETRA: DTE), Bosch, Accenture (NYSE: ACN), PwC, Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), Orange, Daimler (XETRA: DAI), Tine, Schneider Electric (EURONEXT: SU), DNV GL – will also participate in the demo.
“We are excited to partner with the IOTA Foundation and proud to be associated with its new data marketplace initiative,” said Microsoft blockchain specialist Omkar Naik.
“This next generation [sic] technology will accelerate the connected, intelligent world and go beyond blockchain that will foster innovation real world solutions, applications and pilots for our customers,” he continued.
The marketplace demo will run until January. IOTA has promised to release a series of blog posts and case studies to showcase the various ways in which companies and individuals can benefit from using its technology.