Innovating on the Edge
FountainBlue's March 15 VIP Roundtable was on the topic of 'Innovating on the Edge'. Our executives in attendance represented a wide range of industries, perspectives and backgrounds. Below is a summary of their remarks.
Much progress has been made on global networks and accelerating computing on the cloud. Innovating on the edge enables computing to take place locally, on the edge, rather than on the server or cloud, with sensors and devices.
Data is King.
Although our panelists experienced a host of opportunities and challenges for their respective organizations and projects, they concurred that it's a fundamental need to collect and manage the huge volume of data generated on the edge by a host of devices. The trick is to minimize latency (the time it takes to properly collect and process data) by optimizing data collection, filtration, storage and management so that decisions can be made and privacy and access are protected.
GenAI, LLMs and ML are driving Innovations on the Edge.
Groundbreaking AI and ML solutions operating on the edge are making it easier to filter, store and process the data, enabling next-generation hardware and software integrations which makes it easier to track, report on, and respond to well-defined scenarios.
Standardization is in order.
Agreeing on global standards for innovating on the edge will help the industry to grow and thrive, and also help define the workforce skills and needs for the future. But it's still early days so standardization at the global level is not likely to happen in the near future.
Below is a list of opportunities mentioned for innovating on the edge:
Digital twins for scenario planning, predictive failures, root cause analysis, prototyping etc.,
Security and compliance of data will continue to be of great important
Intelligent networking to manage routing and switching
Real-time management of data to detect compliance and security risk with quarantine, destroy and move options for example
Personalize experiences for users with devices on the edge
Manage authentication and authorization at the edge
Reduce false positive and false negative reports by filtering data on the edge
It was clear from our wide-ranging discussion that the need for compute power, storage capabilities, and software and hardware advances will continue to escalate. The question is which company/workforce/leaders can keep performing, and delivering innovations on the edge.