Heralding the dawn of the internet of things (IoT) era, the 2016 World Internet of Things Expo (WIOT) was held in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, from October 30th to November 1st last year as the seventh - and largest - to be held in the city.

Attracting more than 4,000 participants, including senior figures from IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Huawei and Alibaba, and experts from academic institutions, such as Stanford University, the University of Michigan and Peking University, the expo was both a showcase of the latest advancements in the field of IoT and an indicator of China's influence within the field.

Among the key industry leaders in attendance at the expo were Alain Crozier, chairman and CEO of Microsoft Greater China; Zhang Xiaogang, president of the International Organization for Standardization; and Chinese Academy of Engineering academician Wu Hequan. They were joined by more than 500 exhibitors from some 20 countries, including the US, UK, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Israel and Japan.

Globally, 2016 is a milestone year for the IoT industry, as evidenced by the US$32.2 billion acquisition of British IoT chip-designer ARM - and its proprietary IoT operating system - by Japan's SoftBank. ARM is far from alone in developing its own IoT operating system, however, and other major players in the market - including Google's Brillo and Huawei's LiteOS -were all among the talking points at the 2016 WIOT.