Summary

This Supplement provides an overview of IoT convergence, outlining the evolution of IoT from simple connectivity to intelligence and autonomy. It describes the background and future directions of IoT services, highlighting the role of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, edge computing, distributed ledger technology (DLT), and big data in enabling convergence. The document analyses existing standardization efforts and identifies gaps, showing that while some Recommendations address partial convergence issues (e.g., IoT with Big Data, IoT with DLT), few provide a comprehensive convergence framework. This Supplement emphasizes the need for a new ITU-T work item on a convergence framework for enhancing service intelligence based on IoT to support cross-domain integration, standardization of functional entities and procedures, and development of interoperable architectures.