The edge is the new frontier for AI innovation. As organizations aim to deploy AI across distributed environments, they require solutions that can move AI capabilities to the edge—where data is generated and action must be taken. This edge focus is sparking game-changing partnerships that will redefine the edge and unlock the full potential of AI.
The Edge Beckons: Why Organizations Need AI Located Near Data Sources
In the past, AI model training and inference largely occurred in centralized data centers. But this approach comes with some big drawbacks, including:
- Latency from shuttling data to distant clouds
- Bandwidth constraints and costs
- Privacy and security risks of transmitting data
- Lack of autonomy for edge devices
With the explosion of IoT sensors and smart devices generating data at the edge, it’s essential to enable real-time AI close to the source. Edge AI solutions allow organizations to deploy AI models directly on devices or localized edge servers. This avoids streaming all data to a faraway cloud.
Edge AI unlocks game-changing use cases like predictive maintenance on turbines, quality control in manufacturing, real-time monitoring of crops, dynamic routing of autonomous vehicles, and much more. But organizations face barriers to making edge AI work smoothly at scale.
Hurdles to Clear Before Edge AI Can Truly Take Off
To deploy AI pervasively across distributed edge networks, organizations must overcome some key hurdles:
- Data logistics: Shuttling enormous amounts of data consumes bandwidth, time, and energy. Localized inference avoids this issue.
- Latency pains: Round-trip delays to the cloud can torpedo real-time applications. Edge computing provides low-latency results.
- Connectivity headaches: Edge devices often have intermittent network connections. On-device inference allows autonomy.
- Security risks: With sensitive data, it’s safer to process it locally rather than transmit it. Edge AI improves privacy.
- Power problems: Battery-powered devices demand energy-efficient compute. Specialized AI chips offer high throughput per watt.
To clear these hurdles, two areas of innovation are paramount: infrastructure optimized for edge deployment and robust data management capabilities. Partnerships between leading providers in these spaces promise to accelerate widespread edge AI adoption.
Untether AI: Pioneering Efficient AI Acceleration for the Edge
Untether AI is spearheading innovation in efficient AI infrastructure tailored for edge deployment. Their offerings include:
- speedAI® Accelerator Cards: These PCIe cards provide high-performance AI inference in a power-sipping form factor optimized for space-constrained edge devices. For example, the speedAI®240 Slim delivers 240 INT8 TOPS in just 75W.
- EdgeAI Modules: These modules package Untether’s speedAI® into ready-to-deploy edge solutions with networking, storage, cooling, and more all self-contained.
- AI Software Stack: Untether AI provides a full-stack software solution to deploy, manage, and monitor AI workloads at the edge. This enables seamless integration and orchestration.
Untether AI’s breakthrough technology helps overcome key barriers to effective edge AI. Their accelerator cards enable localized inference that reduces data movement, slashes latency, and improves privacy—all while using a fraction of the power required by less specialized hardware. And their software stack radically simplifies managing scale-out edge environments.
Vertical Data: Fueling Next-Gen AI with Optimal Data
While cutting-edge infrastructure is crucial, data is the true fuel for AI. Vertical Data provides the data management and operations capabilities required to power modern AI applications. Their solutions include:
- DataOps Platform: Tools to ingest, prepare, label, and manage data pipelines to train AI models.
- Data Marketplace: A marketplace containing high-quality, industry-specific datasets for training AI models.
- Data Science Services: Experts to help implement DataOps and build custom models optimized for specific use cases.
Robust, reliable data is essential for developing accurate AI models. By combining industry-leading data capabilities with Untether’s high-performance edge infrastructure, organizations can unlock the true potential of AI.
An Edge-Defining Partnership Between AI Innovators
In November 2022, Untether AI and Vertical Data announced a strategic partnership to accelerate AI innovation at the edge. By combining their complementary capabilities, this collaboration will help organizations across industries successfully implement transformative edge AI solutions.
Simon Randall, CEO of Vertical Data, commented: “Data is the fuel for AI, and next-gen applications need data optimized for edge processing. Our partnership with Untether AI will help customers improve edge data collection and rapidly build highly accurate models that provide instant insights where they’re needed most.”
Some key areas this powerhouse partnership aims to tackle:
- Smart infrastructure: Combining edge AI and IoT to monitor and optimize infrastructure like buildings, factories, and cities.
- Connected vehicles: Using edge AI and data for use cases like collision avoidance, route optimization, and predictive maintenance.
- Agriculture: Deploying AI and sensors at the edge of fields to track crop health, predict yields, and detect disease.
- Energy: Leveraging edge AI to make power grids and infrastructure like wind farms smarter and more efficient.
This collaboration brings together two AI trailblazers. By marrying their complementary strengths, it will pave the way for organizations to implement transformational edge AI solutions.
How This Partnership Dissolves Key Edge AI Adoption Obstacles
This partnership represents the future of edge AI done right. Together, Vertical Data and Untether AI can help resolve the key hurdles holding back widespread adoption, including:
- Data deficiencies: Robust data pipelines from Vertical Data remove the bottleneck of inadequate data.
- Infrastructure ill-suited for edge: Untether AI provides performant, efficient inferencing tailored for edge devices.
- Orchestration obstacles: Jointly, these partners enable seamless management of edge data and workloads.
- Dispelling doubts: Validated through real-world implementations, this partnership instills confidence in going all-in on edge AI.
Together, Vertical Data and Untether AI cover all the bases required to make edge AI successful. For Vertical Data, this partnership delivers direct access to optimized edge infrastructure to ingest and process data where it’s generated. For Untether AI, this means their hardware has the high-quality data needed to deliver value. It’s a win-win for dissolving the impediments to frictionless edge AI.
The Future Is Intelligent Edge
Looking ahead, analysts forecast explosive growth in edge AI. Market research firm IDC predicts over 50% of AI inference workloads will run at the edge by 2024.
Untether AI and Vertical Data aim to lead this shift. As 5G networks enable new edge use cases across industries, their integrated solutions will unleash real-time intelligence wherever data is created.
In a statement, Untether AI CEO Marc Naddell said: “This partnership accelerates our mission to drive AI innovation at the edge. Vertical Data’s world-class data management perfectly complements our high-performance, low-power hardware. Together, we will help organizations turn cutting-edge technologies into business results.”
The edge offers huge potential advantages for AI, from lower latency to reduced costs and greater autonomy. But organizations need end-to-end solutions that seamlessly connect the dots across data, connectivity, compute, and more.
With coordinated technologies and partnerships among leading providers like Untether AI and Vertical Data, the edge will become the ultimate platform for AI. More collaborations like this will shape the future, bringing intelligent systems that create incredible value everywhere data is generated.