What is the Industrial Edge? This is a topic that is heavily debated in techno circles outside of the industrial domain. Schneider Electric describes the industrial edge as, “the places where digitized industrial assets and human operators are located. Siemens describes it as, “an open, ready-to-use Edge computing platform consisting of Edge devices, Edge apps, Edge connectivity, and an application and device management infrastructure.”
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Lately, a lot of folks have been questioning the value of 5G at the edge. Can’t we just use Wi-Fi? We can just set up a Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) network for our Internet of Things (IoT) devices and technology. Is 5G even ready to make a difference? I don’t see the difference on my smartphone. These are all very good questions and concerns. So, why does and will 5G matter at the edge?
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Innovation is such a generic and overused term. It seems that every organization claims that they are, or aspire to be, innovative. But what does it mean to innovate with all the artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities coming to the edge? What kind of approach should you have to take this expansive and complex thing that is edge computing plus AI to discover opportunities for creating value that was not there before for your business or your customers?
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One of the more exciting things happening across a variety of edges is artificial intelligence. It is becoming more prevalent especially on our consumer devices, but also across a fast-expanding range of IoT devices that are enabling intelligent digital twinning of factory equipment or monitoring of crops in a field.
As AI-capable devices and emerging edge infrastructures foster new concepts in distributed AI architectures, business leaders and the C-suite can expect pockets of opportunity to arise across an increasingly cognitive and intelligent edge.
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If you hang out in blockchain circles for more than a moment you will undoubtedly hear about smart contracts. In 2017, when blockchain was the disruptive technology du jour, crypto pundits at the time claimed that smart contracts would quickly disintermediate escrow companies, freight forwarders, medical insurance claim processors, financial clearinghouses, and middlemen across all industries. Five years later, none of these “disruptions” have happened nor are they close to happening. Traditional intermediaries continue to enjoy their place in their respective industries. While Ethereum, the crypto network which is the basis for the nascent but heavily hyped DeFi (Decentralized Finance) phenomenon, and the overhyped NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens), has come a long way in terms of market value, few smart contract applications founded on it have scaled to a degree to pose a threat to traditional contractual media or networks.
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This analyst brief, authored by Acceleration Economy Analyst Leonard Lee, with contribution from analysts Kenny Mullican, and Ronak Mathur, offers insights into critical automation that is used at the network edge. And how those technologies are redefining workflows, changing value propositions, and creating autonomous environments that enable enhanced efficiencies, by removing manual processes from critical operational workflows.
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In this installment of the Cutting Edge, I’m going to suggest a big picture hypothesis for why edge computing will matter for businesses in the future while attempting to avoid hyperbolizing the possibilities that often are the outcome of such exercises. Hopefully, I can get your creative juices flowing with some inspirational perspectives on edge computing and how it can help you rethink process automation and operations optimization.
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We have talked about how the edge has and is continuing to become more “cloudified”. Every day, we see multiple press releases from a slew of startups as well as the leading cloud service providers that lend proof to the notion that cloud technologies and service delivery models are making their way across the edge. In this article, I will touch on how the edge cloud is shaping the future of computing.
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It’s been 3 years since the last Mobile World Congress that neXt Curve has attended in person. Needless to say, the global pandemic has all but made in-person events a toil at the least. GSMA, the host of the MWC, found fortune this year as the US and Spain finds themselves on the back end of the Omicron wave. The show that might not have been went on with approximately 60K attendees, and over 1,900 exhibitors in attendance. According to John Hoffman, CEO of GSMA, the event was by all measures as success.
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Enterprises and government organizations are automating and transforming their businesses and a greater number of applications require low latency, real-time business and operational intelligence. This driving game changing trend will require edge computing….essentially moving data collection, storage, analysis, and intelligence to the data collection point or end-point device. This data collection point or end-point device may range from things such as a factory floor, a medical patient, an elevator, a store front, and even a college campus. The opportunities are endless and an estimated 3 in 4 businesses will be using edge computing solutions over the next 5 years.
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