Why IoT grows in agriculture but needs tonic for healthcare | Computer Weekly

"According to research from connectivity firm Eseye, internet of things (IoT) technology deployment has seen a significant uptake in the past few years, with implementations at mid-sized companies in particular rising from 51% in 2021 to 76% in 2025. Furthermore, according to business management firm McKinsey, IoT technology is expected to generate around $5.5tn to $12.6tn of global economic value by 2030."

"However, growth across sectors has not been uniform so far. For example, agriculture IoT deployments have scaled across millions of acres and are using low-cost sensors to decrease chemical usage, improve irrigation and boost yields, despite patchy connectivity in remote areas. In contrast, similar deployments have often struggled to scale beyond pilots in healthcare and home care, slowed down by high security requirements and integration challenges."

""IoT scales in agriculture and logistics because those environments can usually absorb some delay, packet loss and partial visibility. A soil sensor can miss a reading and the farm still functions. A pallet tracker can reconnect later and the shipment still arrives," says Leid Zejnilovic, co-academic director at Nova SBE's Digital Data Design Institute."

""Healthcare is different because the cost of a bad assumption is not inconvenience but harm. The hard problem in healthcare is not connectivity alone, but trustworthy operation inside a safety-critical workflow.""

IoT deployments have increased significantly, especially among mid-sized companies, rising from 51% in 2021 to 76% in 2025. Global economic value from IoT is projected to reach about $5.5tn to $12.6tn by 2030. Growth varies by sector. Agriculture IoT has scaled across millions of acres using low-cost sensors to reduce chemical use, improve irrigation, and increase yields, even with patchy connectivity. Healthcare and home care deployments often remain limited to pilots due to high security requirements and integration challenges. Agriculture and logistics can tolerate delays and partial visibility, while healthcare requires trustworthy operation within safety-critical workflows. Sensors provide real-time data for smart farming, and analytics and automation support disease prediction and autonomous machinery.

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