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Supranet is a term coined by Gartner at the turn of the 21st century to describe the fusion of the physical and digital worlds.^[1]

At its inception in 2000,^[2] the term alluded to the ongoing convergence of the Internet, mobile communications, always-on connectivity, sensors, and advanced human-computer interaction. In subsequent elaborations, it was expanded to include electronic tagging (via, for example, RFID), geotagging, and electronic geo-mapping (i.e., mapping internet coordinates to geodetic coordinates), completing the fusion of physical and virtual.^[3][4][5]

Collectively, those publications^[which?] anticipated the following trends, all subsumed under the Supranet heading:

• The increase of miniature intelligent devices, such as microelectromechanical systems or RFID tags, already numbered by the billions in 2001.^[6]
• The assignment of an electronic ID to physical objects, specifically manufactured products, to make them uniquely identifiable.
• They were making objects that control or take measurements from the physical world accessible via the internet (the Internet of Things, or IoT).
• Humans, animals, and objects carrying such IoT devices become identifiable by these devices.
• The geographic locations of living beings with IoT devices would become increasingly easy to track.
• The mapping of the surface of the Earth, its features, the locations of internet-capable devices, and the assignment of IP addresses to physical regions on the Earth.

A common example of Supranet is geotagging, as seen in online photo services such as Flickr, Panoramio, or Picasa.

The concept of Supranet has continued to be discussed in the media, in scientific research, and in product development.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12][13]} One example of a large-scale project heavily influenced by the Supranet is Virtual Australia, which is described as "a virtual model containing and representing all non-trivial objects and their contextual environment – from blue sky to bedrock – in real world Australia".^[14]

In some of his subsequent works, one of the original Gartner authors^[who?] made it clear that there were several precursors to the concept of Supranet, crediting David Gelernter,^[15] G.W. Fitzmaurice^[16] and J.C. "Supranet"^[17] as the pioneers.