Ambient IoT Alliance: Intel, Qualcomm, Infineon, PepsiCo, VusionGroup, and Wiliot Join to Drive Battery-Free IoT

Ambient Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a new class of IoT devices primarily powered by harvesting ambient energy from radio waves, light, motion, heat, or any other viable ambient energy source.

In ABI Research’s Energy Harvesting for the IoT: Vendor Landscape and Technology Developments (AN-6273), we discussed the ecosystem of energy harvester manufacturers and Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC) designers that are unlocking the market opportunity for battery-free IoT systems. In Energy Harvesting for the IoT: Addressable Markets and Forecast Expectations (AN-6274), we traced the deployment of these supply-side components into operational Ambient IoT systems, as Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) look for alternatives to battery power.

Now, component and device manufacturers are joining forces. In February 2025, the Ambient IoT Alliance (AIoTA) was formed to accelerate the proliferation of ambient-powered devices. According to the AIoTA, the group has been established to “facilitate and support the development of an open, harmonized, multi-standard ecosystem for ambient IoT manufacturers, suppliers, integrators, operators, users, and customers.”

The founding member are Atmosic, Infineon Technologies AG, Intel, PepsiCo, Qualcomm, VusionGroup, and Wiliot, “all of which are invested in the advancement of ambient IoT solutions, best practices, interoperability, and other alliance efforts,” according to the group.

The alliance is a coalition of competencies, bringing together semiconductor manufacturers, device OEMs, and designers of components that exclusively serve Ambient IoT systems. The latter group is likely to use the alliance as a platform to demonstrate the economic value proposition of energy harvesting to end customers, tap into new IoT application markets, and promote their product offerings. Energy harvesting companies include:

• Atmosic: a U.S.-based semiconductor company that offers a range of wireless Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) for energy harvesting applications. These include their own designs for Power Management Units (PMUs), wireless Microcontroller Units (MCUs), and radio chipsets, which mostly use Bluetooth® Low Energy (LE).
• Wiliot: An Israeli company specializing in the design of “IoT Pixels”—postage stamp-sized compute devices that contain harvesting and transmission antennas to enable Radio Frequency (RF) harvesting from radio signals. Wiliot’s IoT Pixel tracker provides connectivity to products and packaging across all supply chain stages, targeting IoT applications and perishable goods, including grocery, pharmaceutical, and apparel markets.
• VusionGroup: This group has developed “EdgeSense,” a Photovoltaic (PV)-powered charging system for energizing Electronic Shelf Labels (ESLs)—digital display devices used in retail to provide information on prices and promotional offers. VusionGroup says that EdgeSense, which uses Exeger’s Powerfoyle technology, can reduce a retailer’s carbon footprint by up to 50%.

The AIoTA has earmarked a number of objectives from the initiative, but it is worth remembering the adoption challenges that it will have to address if the venture is to succeed.

• Develop Harvesting-Friendly Connectivity Protocols: The alliance has stated that it is “committed to facilitating a global ecosystem based on next-generation, battery-free ambient IoT standards for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 5G.” However, energy harvesting is best applied in power-sipping IoT devices in highly controlled environments, requiring short bursts of energy. While The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) are exploring ways to optimize network support for ambient-powered systems, more power-intensive connectivity technologies like Wi-Fi and 5G are considered too powerful for most Ambient IoT applications.
• Leverage “Symbiotic” AI and Ambient IoT: According to the AIoTA, “the vast data generated by ambient IoT will also enable advanced artificial intelligence (AI) applications… Ambient IoT and artificial intelligence are symbiotic technologies, each unlocking the promise of the other.” The opportunity to offload the compute operations from the cloud to the device embodies the new opportunities afforded by Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML). However, many industry observers refute the long-term viability of running AI inferencing engines locally on ultra-low power IoT devices, while keeping Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) to a minimum.
• Drive “Sustainable IoT” Away from Dominant Battery Use: The potential new era of self-sufficient, regenerative connected devices may appear as the silver bullet to minimizing the use of disposable batteries, and associated use of hazardous substances, including mercury and cadmium. However, the AIoTA will need to navigate a series of bottlenecks, including the higher upfront cost of energy harvesting components, including capacitors and supercapacitors, compared to coin cell batteries. For example, the upfront costs of ambient-powered wall switches can be up to 3X more expensive than battery-powered switches due to the additional components required.

The AIoTA lays the foundation to address bottlenecks preventing the growth of ambient-powered IoT devices, but as an interest group, it only scratches the surface of a much wider ecosystem. If the AIoTA is to achieve the objectives listed above, it will need to consider the following:

• Growing the Network to Address Fragmentation: The AIoTA brings together the competencies of semiconductor manufacturers, energy harvester vendors, and IoT OEMs, but the founding companies represent only a cross-section of a much larger innovation landscape. In its current form, only designers of PV and RF harvesters are represented in the group. To become a truly representative industry alliance, the AIoTA should also pull in the expertise of companies specializing in piezoelectric, mechanical, and thermoelectric harvester design, including EnOcean, or Everactive, as potential examples. Given its prevalence in existing Ambient IoT devices, it is notable that pioneering harvesting-PMIC designer e-peas has either declined, or was not invited to participate in the alliance.
• Collaboration with Network Standards Bodies, IoT OEMs, and TinyML Vendors: The AIoTA should also look to incorporate leading device OEMs from other IoT application markets, including industrial, asset tracking, smart home, and commercial buildings, as well as the designers of chipset architecture that are enabling on-device AI/ML. Doing so would provide a more streamlined engagement channel for IoT developers to engage with 3GPP and IEEE as they explore the ways that intelligent Ambient IoT can be better defined and supported through the development of cellular and Wi-Fi standards, respectively. Given the widespread use of low-power protocols like Bluetooth® LE and the EnOcean standard, the AIoTA should also engage with Bluetooth SIG and EnOcean to understand the network and device requirements in constructing energy harvesting systems.
• Driving the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Case: The alliance should use its collective influence to educate IoT OEMs on the opportunity to replace, or augment, battery power with piezoelectric, thermoelectric, PV, and RF harvesting systems, and mitigate against regulatory intervention. In anticipation of greater regulation of non-rechargeable batteries, including the European Union’s (EU) “Batteries Regulation” directive, the alliance should encourage manufacturers to explore how harvesting components can be integrated within existing product portfolios to future-proof these devices, and meet their own ESG targets.