From the release of Ignition 8.3 software to the ProveIt! showcases live on stage, get all the highlights from this year's Ignition Community Conference.

If you’re like many in manufacturing, you’re still facing the same challenges:

Those problems and some solutions were front and center at this year’s Ignition Community Conference.

What stood out

The theme was “It starts with Ignition.” Ignition 8.3, released during ICC, delivered meaningful upgrades: event streams, REST API configuration, a streamlined file structure, and a new Perspective drawing tool. These changes make projects easier to build, scale, and manage with DevOps practices like version control and team collaboration.

At Opto 22, we’re right there with you, now supporting containerization on our groov family of products and still supporting REST API access—features that fit into the same DevOps workflows.

But for me, the message was clear: none of this matters if you can’t first connect your equipment. You need I/O and control at the edge that not only works reliably, but also speaks the same languages as your Ignition projects—MQTT Sparkplug B, RESTful APIs, or OPC UA.

That’s the foundation that lets Ignition see, manage, and expand what you already have.

ProveIt! sessions

The ProveIt! track showed this in the most practical way. Our own Benson Hougland and Garrick Reichert opened with a demo that connected dark brownfield assets, lit up a new greenfield machine, and structured both in the Unified Namespace using UDTs, then published to the virtual factory using Ignition’s MQTT Distributor Module. 

It was a step-by-step answer to the question: Where do I start?

Main stage

The main stage at ICC is where the big ideas come out, and this year the focus was clear: the future depends on data you can trust. The opening keynotes looked ahead at how Ignition is evolving for AI and large-scale deployments. Arlen Nipper and Nathan Davenport from Cirrus Link Solutions drove the point home with a powerful look at MQTT Sparkplug B. 

For my opportunity to take the big stage, I focused on a real-world example from Moriroku Technology North America (MTNA). They started small, outfitting injection molding machines for under $1000 each with groov RIO, then used MQTT Sparkplug B to stream cycle times, mold changes, and water flow data into a unified namespace. 

That practical first step connected directly with the idea that you don’t start with AI, you start with good, reliable data.

The OptoBooth

At ICC, the conversation built from the stage to the exhibit floor. In the ProveIt! session and the Machine Monitoring talk, engineers saw how to connect both legacy and new machines, stand up a proof of concept quickly, and bring everything together in a unified namespace.

At the Opto 22 booth, our demos put those ideas into action. Attendees crowded around to see groov EPIC and RIO streaming live machine data into Ignition, and many walked away with a practical path they could take back to their own plants. Everyone’s situation is different, but the point came through: you don’t need a big budget or a massive project to start building your own UNS.

The takeaway for you

ICC 2025 showed how far the Ignition community has come—but also how many of you are still at the beginning. You don’t need to leap into AI tomorrow. You need I/O and control that integrates seamlessly with Ignition in the way you want to use it.

That’s where Opto 22 comes in. We provide the connections and control that make Ignition projects real. With that foundation in place, you can scale, integrate, and innovate with confidence.

If you’ve been asking yourself Where do I start?—this is it. And if you want to see where the Ignition community is heading next, don’t miss ICC 2026.