Livin on the Edge, Part 5: Enabling & Empowering Locally

This is part five of a five part series on edge computing with a focus on end-devices & services enabled by edge computing.

THE COWEN INSIGHT

The next wave of computing is coming to the edge. Just as the cloud moved processing, networking, storage, memory, and software into centralized locations, edge computing will bring these resources back closer to the devices consuming them. Enabled by an increasingly holistic approach to technology, edge computing will have wide-ranging implications across both hardware and software.

Edge computing will open new capabilities, accelerate adoption rates and help shape future use cases. This report explores the wide-ranging implications of edge capability on our world. We examine diverse markets and opportunities, with the common thread being the further blurring of the lines between man and machine.

Technologies Best Positioned to Capitalize on Edge Computing

We analyze the potential of edge computing on:

• Industrial Automation & Robotics – including 1) Digital Twins; 2) Augmented Reality; 3) Robotics; 4) Machine Learning; and 5) Machine Vision
• Autonomous & Connected Vehicles – edge computing already plays a critical role in connected vehicles and autonomous driving applications
• Smart Cities – as governments, municipalities, and utilities are increasingly looking at smart infrastructure to address the challenges of rising pollution, overcrowding, and dwindling resources.
• Consumer Devices – including 5G wireless cellular technology, expected growth in artificial intelligence, machine learning and smart home devices.
• IT Services – which presents massive opportunity through the horizontal integration of operational technology and information technology, and the development and support of clients’ new products, business models and services.
• Video Games – where we expect edge to play a role in the success of video game streaming as a mass market consumer product

While specific impacts in this sense are more challenging to quantify than the infrastructure resources required to enable them, they are certain to be profound as decentralized, distributed high power compute becomes readily available.

Read the five part edge computing series

Part 1: Evolving Tomorrow’s Internet focuses on communications services and cloud/internet.

Part 2: The Brains and Nervous System of Edge Computing focuses on computing and memory.

Part 3: Storage & Networking focuses on storage and networking.

Part 4: Bringing Analytics & Business Logic to Edge Compute focuses on software and security.

Part 5: Enabling & Empowering Locally focuses on end-devices & services enabled by edge computing.