Kicking off its Global Summit in San Diego today, Intel Capital is announcing new investments of $38 million directed at 12 startups, a few of which appear to have potential to advance the Internet of Things (IoT).

Intel Capital, the venture arm of chip giant Intel, has interests that span the tech industry in a broad sense. Lately, both Intel and Intel Capital have shown a penchant for end products — drones, for example — rather than the in-chip technology that Intel has been most famous for. Intel Capital has even announced a Sports and Health focus.

Most of the newly funded companies announced today fit into that theme. Here's a list of investments that appear to have an IoT infrastructure angle (amounts invested in individual companies were not disclosed).

CubeWorks makes extremely small computers — millimeter-scale radios, sensors, and processors. This investment came out of Intel Capital's Sports and Health focus. But of course, a tiny, wirelessly connected computer has plenty of potential for the IoT world in general.

Paxata, based in Silicon Valley, applies machine learning to the question of what to do with the mountains of data becoming available. Instead of having users write code, Paxata lets them use natural-language commands. IoT developers envision their sensors gathering much more data than humans could parse; it won't be surprising to see more startups pitching technology for sifting through that data.

Embodied is a robotics startup — which might not necessarily give it an IoT connection, but the company has a "cool" factor worth mentioning, as co-founder Paolo Pirjanian is the former CTO of iRobot, the Roomba company.

Two other funded startups are also developing technology for autonomous vehicles and mobile robots. Chronocam is working on computer vision systems, with an eye toward cars and drones, but it's also exploring some less obvious applications such as security. Perrone Robotics, meanwhile, has spent 13 years honing autonomous-vehicle software.

Finally, Grand Chip Microelectronics is a Chinese startup developing a WiFi front-end for cellular connectivity, targeting IoT specifically.