EMQ and Volt Forge Alliance for Sub-10ms Industrial IoT Decisions

MENLO PARK, CA – December 16, 2025 – In a move poised to redefine the speed of industrial automation, MQTT messaging leader EMQ and real-time data platform Volt Active Data have announced a strategic partnership. The collaboration delivers a unified solution designed to shrink the gap from device signal to intelligent action to under 10 milliseconds, targeting mission-critical operations in manufacturing, energy, and other edge-computing environments.

This alliance brings together two specialized, high-performance technologies to tackle a persistent challenge in the Internet of Things (IoT): translating a relentless torrent of data into immediate, reliable, and automated decisions. By combining EMQ’s massive-scale device connectivity with Volt’s in-memory data processing, the partners aim to provide enterprises with a cohesive platform that moves beyond passive data collection into an era of active, real-time operational intelligence.

A New Architecture for the Speed of Operations

Modern industrial systems, from smart factory floors to sprawling utility grids, generate continuous streams of data where every millisecond counts. A delay in detecting a machine anomaly can lead to costly downtime, while a slow response to a grid fluctuation can impact energy delivery to thousands. The partnership between EMQ and Volt Active Data is engineered specifically to address these high-stakes scenarios.

The jointly designed architecture creates a streamlined data pipeline from the physical world to a digital decision engine. It begins at the edge with EMQ’s platform, including products like EMQX Neuron, which can ingest data directly from industrial hardware using protocols like PLC. This data is then streamed via the high-performance EMQX MQTT broker, which is capable of handling millions of concurrent device connections.

This stream of live data flows directly into the Volt Active Data platform. Built on an in-memory architecture pioneered by database visionary Dr. Michael Stonebraker, Volt is designed to process data before storing it, enabling ingest-to-action cycles that consistently fall within the single-digit millisecond range. This allows for complex event processing, analytics, and even the execution of artificial intelligence and machine learning models to happen virtually instantaneously as data arrives.

"Enterprises are moving from passive data collection to active, real-time intelligence," said Benniu Ji, VP of Products at EMQ, in the official announcement. "They need infrastructure that can sense, understand, and respond at the speed of operations. Our collaboration with Volt Active Data delivers exactly that, helping customers build automated IoT systems that take action the moment events occur."

This sub-10 millisecond device-to-decision capability represents a significant leap from traditional IoT architectures, which often involve multiple layers, cloud round-trips, and batch processing cycles that introduce unacceptable latency for truly time-sensitive automation.

Simplifying the Fragmented Edge-to-Cloud Pipeline

For many organizations, the path to digital transformation has been complicated by a fragmented technology landscape. Building a real-time IoT solution often requires stitching together disparate components for device connectivity, messaging, data storage, streaming analytics, and application logic. This complexity increases total cost of ownership, creates integration bottlenecks, and makes it difficult to guarantee end-to-end performance and reliability.

The EMQ-Volt partnership directly targets this pain point by offering a more cohesive, end-to-end solution. By presenting a unified path from industrial data collection to intelligent automation, the collaboration aims to simplify the data pipeline and eliminate architectural fragmentation.

"The combination of EMQ and Volt brings together two best-of-breed platforms to solve the hardest problems in industrial and edge intelligence," noted Dheeraj Remella, Field CTO at Volt Active Data. "Customers can now connect devices securely, process streaming data with full consistency, and make actionable, intelligent decisions instantly. This collaboration unlocks real-time automation in a way that is simple, reliable, and scalable, across the edge to cloud continuum."

The solution is designed for flexibility, supporting cloud, hybrid, and Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) deployments to meet the needs of diverse enterprises, including those in highly regulated industries. This adaptability allows organizations to deploy the powerful real-time capabilities at the rugged edge, within a private data center, or on a public cloud, depending on their specific operational and compliance requirements.

Operationalizing Intelligence Where It Matters Most

A key promise of the partnership is its ability to bring artificial intelligence directly to the source of the data. The solution enables the deployment of AI and machine learning models inside the Volt platform, allowing them to analyze incoming MQTT messages from EMQX as they arrive. This "operational AI at the edge" approach eliminates the need for external compute layers or lengthy round trips to a centralized cloud for inference.

In a predictive manufacturing scenario, for example, sensor data from factory machinery can be streamed via EMQX to a local Volt instance. An embedded machine learning model can then analyze this data in real time to detect subtle anomalies that predict an imminent failure. An automated command can be triggered within milliseconds to adjust machine parameters or schedule maintenance, preventing costly unplanned downtime.

Similarly, in the smart utilities sector, data from thousands of smart meters and grid sensors can be collected by EMQX Edge and analyzed by Volt to identify patterns indicating a potential outage or an opportunity for load balancing. Safe, fully audited control commands can be sent back to field devices almost instantly, improving grid stability and energy efficiency at a massive scale.

By embedding intelligence directly within the data processing workflow at the edge, organizations can achieve faster, more secure, and more cost-effective AI-driven automation. Decisions are made locally, reducing dependence on network connectivity and minimizing the costs associated with transmitting massive datasets to the cloud for analysis.

Navigating a Competitive and Complex Market

The EMQ and Volt collaboration enters a dynamic market populated by technology giants like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google, all of which offer extensive IoT suites. Industrial stalwarts such as Siemens and IBM also provide deeply entrenched platforms for operational technology. Against this backdrop, the partnership's differentiation lies in its specialized focus on extreme low-latency performance and a simplified, best-of-breed stack.

While major cloud providers offer a broad array of services, achieving guaranteed, single-digit millisecond end-to-end latency for mission-critical industrial actions can be a complex and costly customization effort. The EMQ-Volt solution is purpose-built for this niche, promising out-of-the-box performance for the most demanding use cases.

However, the path forward is not without challenges. The practical complexities of integrating two sophisticated platforms, while addressed by a "jointly designed architecture," will require robust support and clear documentation to ensure seamless deployment for customers. The companies have stated that joint integration assets and best practices will follow, signaling that this is an ongoing effort. Furthermore, convincing enterprises to adopt this new model over their existing infrastructure will require a strong educational push and proven, real-world case studies.

The solution is available immediately using existing products from both companies. As industrial sectors continue their push toward greater automation and data-driven efficiency, this alliance provides a compelling new option for organizations looking to build the next generation of intelligent, responsive, and resilient operations.