Live On the Edge

How can companies leverage the combination of edge computing & AI to foster sustainability?

- Raju Chellam

Here's a convoluted corporate story: During a company's annual town hall, the CEO proudly discussed their perceived market-leading performance and announced new solutions on the cloud and at the edge. An employee raised a concern: "What steps are we taking to ensure our data isn't compromised? Aren't we worried about cloud security?" The CEO turned to the CSO (Chief Security Officer). "No, we're not worried about cloud security," the CSO blithely replied. "Our data is so disorganized that even we are unable to find anything of value."

If that anecdote made you blink, these statistics should make you think: The global spending on edge computing is set to reach US$378 billion by 2028 - up from roughly US$200 billion in 2023 and US$228 billion in 2024. That's a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 12% between 2023 and 2028, as per IDC estimates. It includes combined enterprise and service provider spending on hardware, software, professional services, and provisioned services for edge solutions.

Edge computing is a distributed model that brings computation and storage closer to the sources of data. Instead of sending data to a centralized data center or cloud for processing, the data is churned and analyzed locally, near where it is generated. This approach helps reduce latency, improve response times, and save bandwidth.

It's akin to a large retail chain which sends the inventory data from each store to a central warehouse (the cloud) for processing. This can be slow, especially during busy shopping seasons. With edge computing, it's like having mini warehouses (edge devices) at each store. These mini warehouses can process inventory data locally, right where it's generated. This means faster restocking, better inventory management, and quicker responses to meet local customer demands.