A conversation between an Energy Journalist and Deep Nayar, Founder & CTO at IoT83
Energy Journalist: Could you tell us about your professional background and how you found your way into the field of industrial IoT? What’s your journey been like, and what are you focused on now?
Deep Nayar: My journey started very early, while I was still in college, as an undergraduate in India. My interest in IoT began back in grade eight, and that interest has only grown over the years. I’ve been lucky enough to be part of the transformation of the entire telecom industry—from its very core PSTN, the public switched telephone network that many are familiar with, into IP networks, then into the mobile world, and now into more converged networks.
I’ve had the opportunity to be part of this transformational chain as telecom evolved into a more open system. My learnings from here helped me realize the sheer importance of scaling an IoT solution because telecom bets heavily on it. Over the years, I’ve been involved in building many products, taking them from the idea stage all the way to their end of life, and seeing them deployed across many countries. We’ve sold products across different aspects of telecom—if you look at the industry, there are three main planes: user interaction, signaling, and data transport, including how voice is converted and sent over the network. We’ve played roles in all these areas, which gave us strong technical depth across the board.
Because we were operating at an international level, I also gained a good sense of how different countries approach their telecommunications systems and digital transformation. For instance, the US has typically led in terms of innovation, Europe is more conservative, and India has brought hundreds of millions into the telecom arena in recent years. Today, outside of China, India is among the largest in terms of connections, and major investments have flowed into the sector. So, I’ve seen this global transition and participated in it, gaining cross-functional knowledge, not just technical, but also legal, corporate law, and M&A activities as things evolved.
For the last 20 to 25 years, networking, security, data centers, and enterprise IT have all been changing, along with the chip industry, and I’ve had a front-row seat. We were at the forefront of bringing these changes together, from specifications to final product and field operations. This didn’t just involve the telecom industry but also allowed us to focus on various verticals under equipment manufacturing, especially in the energy sector.
At IoT83, I brought together many people I’ve worked with over the years to form a company focused on transforming the OEM business. We saw the next big technology wave impacting a very large market, and with our experience in hardware and software transformation, we chose the OEM sector. About eight years ago, I started an incubation house called 83Incs, and one of our key investments is in industrial IoT. Our goal is to help democratize industrial IoT software, so Industrial OEMs can focus on differentiating their offerings rather than being bogged down by core infrastructure.
Energy Journalist: Let’s talk about head-end systems. Can you walk me through what they are and how they’re different from traditional IoT platforms that most operators in the energy management space use?
Deep Nayar: Head-end systems are quite different because the energy market has very specific needs—it must be extremely secure and tamper-proof. The endpoints, such as smart energy meters, are not primitive but have limited functionality; their job is basic: measuring the flow of current. But the way you extract information from those meters is different. There are two models: you can either push information from the meter to the head-end or pull it from the network. Both models need to operate together and on demand.
The challenge is how to auto-scale these models for different configurations. Some days, there’s more demand for pulling data; other days, more data is pushed. The operator needs flexibility on what information to collect and at what intervals, and those rules have to be strictly adhered to for performance. Designing a highly distributed, scalable, and performant system is not as simple as it might seem. If you can predict traffic, it’s easier, but if not, every part of the chain must be able to adapt.
The complexity increases rapidly as you add more features—it’s not linear. The interaction between features makes scaling much more difficult. For example, scaling 20 features isn’t just one increment over 19—it could be exponentially more complex. That has a direct impact on cost optimization and the underlying economic models. Finance teams become very focused on containing costs because every new feature can affect the unit economics all the way to what the end customer pays. It becomes an engineering challenge to make sure that, as you add features, the cost curve flattens rather than grows out of control.
Thankfully, my background in telecom gave me a deep understanding of how to meet SLAs, build highly available data pipelines, and create scalable, cost-effective IoT systems. Working with clients like Verizon, who have extremely high expectations—sometimes five times more demanding than the global average—really sharpened my engineering approach. That experience directly influenced how we solved these problems for the equipment manufacturers as well.
Energy Journalist: What were the key architectural principles behind your large-scale deployment? Were there any specific design decisions that made such scale and reliability possible?
Deep Nayar: We follow three core principles. First, always go back to first principles—look at everything in a lightly coupled but tightly cohesive way. Each unit of the system must be complete in itself, so it’s easy to work on and expand units independently. The features that provide high availability, fault tolerance, and elasticity must also be designed to be independent from correlations between units.
Second, the chains that tie these units together must also be able to expand as needed. It’s not just about independent units but ensuring that the entire system can grow flexibly.
Third, never compromise on these principles for the sake of time or short-term convenience. It’s easy for teams to make compromises unintentionally, especially if they don’t have experience with large, interworking systems. Often, developers look at features in isolation without considering the degrees of association—how one feature impacts others a step or two away. But if you maintain strict adherence to first principles and build with lightly coupled, tightly cohesive modules, many complex problems essentially solve themselves over time.
Energy Journalist: What are some of the biggest pain points you’ve seen for energy companies, especially in IoT software? Where are their current stacks hitting a wall?
Deep Nayar: While my experience with energy companies specifically is limited, I see that the entire energy value chain is changing—from energy generation to transmission to distribution. These traditional silos are being broken down. Now, a transmission company might also be a generator or even a provider. The lines are blurring, and technology is accelerating this shift.
However, forming new business models and financial associations is taking much longer than breaking down the silos themselves, largely because the financial implications are complex. It’s similar to how big retailers like Walmart need deep data and historical knowledge to optimize supply chains and pricing. The energy sector is now facing similar challenges—trying to understand and optimize unit pricing and supply chains, not just locally but globally.
Consumers are also becoming more aware of energy pricing and are challenging their local governments to ensure fair practices. Energy needs are higher than ever, so there’s a lot of pressure on governance and transparency. This overall dismantling and re-formation of business models will take time, and during this transition, companies must learn to adapt quickly, sometimes competing in one area and collaborating in another. It’s a confusing but necessary process.
Energy Journalist: How do head-end systems help address those challenges, especially as silos break down in the energy sector?
Deep Nayar: Head-end systems have to be dynamic and straightforward. When you bring a system online, it should work right out of the box—you shouldn’t need to adjust for how everything else functions. The next layer, which connects to the end consumer, is the Meter Data Management (MDM) system. The head-end is just one part of the chain, responsible for efficiently connecting the asset and transporting data. Its role should be limited to this function; don’t overload it with additional complexity. Keep it simple.
Energy Journalist: How does your model give Industrial OEMs or asset owners more control and ownership over their IoT software? Why is this impactful in the energy management context?
Deep Nayar: What we’ve built at IoT83 isn’t specific to energy; it’s what I call domain-agnostic IoT middleware. Many IoT platform or application services at this scale share a large degree of commonality. Typically, teams end up reinventing the wheel repeatedly—building the same core functionalities over and over. We thought, “Why not separate the business logic (the domain expertise) from the plumbing (the core infrastructure)?”
Think of it like constructing a hospital: the building has all the standard systems—plumbing, wiring, HVAC—and each department just customizes the space for its own needs. All the core functions are handled by the platform, and users can focus on their unique requirements.
By decoupling business logic from infrastructure, you gain sustainability and dramatically reduce time to market. The cost of abstraction must be much less than the value you gain in speed and flexibility. Our 80/20 rule is that about 80% of what’s needed is common across applications, and only 20% is unique. If a company used to spend a dollar, with 80 cents going into the platform and 20 cents on custom features, now they only need to lease the 20% from us and can allocate the rest of their budget toward real differentiation.
The more our customers leverage our platform, the greater the value they get, and we give them a running start. They can get to revenue faster, fund their own unique features, and retain full IP ownership and control. This fundamentally changes how they approach building and deploying digital IoT solutions.
Energy Journalist: What do you see as the biggest IoT software challenges for the energy management that still haven’t been fully addressed?
Deep Nayar: The single biggest challenge is IP ownership—both of the application and the data. In IT, there’s widespread acceptance that the application may be managed by a third party, but the data is yours. In energy and industrial sectors, though, companies still see their applications as their differentiation and core intellectual property. Over time, I think even that will become commoditized. Companies will eventually realize the real value is in their data—how they use it, and the services and outcomes they deliver from it.
We’re only at the first step of that transition. At IoT83, we’ve moved the market forward by making the core platform a commodity, letting clients focus on the 20% that really sets them apart. In a few years, as AI and ML and other technologies mature, we’ll see even greater commoditization of applications. The real differentiator will be what you do with your data and how you deliver value to the end user, not the application itself.
Energy Journalist: As we wrap up, do you have any advice for clean energy companies or those just starting to build their digital infrastructure?
Deep Nayar: My advice is to look at the full picture. If you don’t know how the dollar is being distributed along the IoT value chain—even if you only participate in a small part of it—you’ll struggle to operate effectively or adapt as things change. Try to understand how new value will be created and how revenue will flow in the evolving landscape. Everyone’s context is a bit different; what’s right for one company may not work for another.
Patience is important as you walk through this transition. Don’t lose sight of the bigger goal—lowering carbon footprints and building sustainability into your business. That’s aligned with global objectives like those of the World Bank. Awareness is the first step; understanding and meaningful action will follow, even if progress is slow. Keep playing the game, and stay open to change.
