FEATURE
The role of AI
Phil White, CTO at
Phil
White,
CTO at Scale Computing
Scale
Computing
launching HCI Edge compute clusters that
are no bigger than a cup of coffee. Smart technologies
By 2020, it is expected that 80% of all
devices will have an Artificial Intelligence
(AI) feature. While the cloud has provided
AI with the platform it needed to grow to
the level of being available on nearly every
technological device, the combination of
HCI and Edge Computing will give AI the
tools needed to evolve to the next frontier,
with smarter and faster decision making
for organisations in 2020. Jeff
Manning,
EVP Worldwide
Sales at
Jeff
Manning,
EVP Worldwide
Cybera
Sales at Cybera
The colocation industry
Eltjo
Hofstee,
Managing
Director at
Eltjo
Hofstee,
Managing
Leaseweb
UK at Leaseweb UK
Director
Most Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology
today relies on the cloud and makes
decisions based on the collection of data
that is stored in the cloud it is accessing.
However, this can cause latency as data
has to travel to data centres and then
back to the device. For example, this can
be problematic for self-driving cars, which
cannot wait for the round trip of data to
know when to brake, or how fast to travel.
As a result of this, more organisations are
turning to hyperconverged infrastructure
(HCI) and Edge Computing to capture
data at the source of creation, specifically
to support high-performance use cases,
such as AI. The implementation of HCI and
Edge Computing in AI will see the industry
reduced form factors, since HCI allows
for technology to operate within a smaller
hardware design. In fact, some companies
have already announced that they will be
THE
COMBINATION
OF HCI AND EDGE
COMPUTING
WILL GIVE AI THE
TOOLS NEEDED TO
EVOLVE TO THE
NEXT FRONTIER.
36
Issue 11
The term ‘uberisation’ has become a
popular way to describe how a business
utilises the Uber business model to disrupt
or transform their market. The Uber genie
is now well and truly out of the bottle and
in 2020 we’re only going to see more and
more examples of businesses transforming
in this way. Take retail as an example. This
sector has been transforming itself for
years – from bricks and mortar, to online,
The colocation industry will continue
to grow, particularly in the enterprise
space as more organisations migrate IT
infrastructures to the cloud. IT start-ups
and scale-ups nowadays start in the cloud
from day one but are also pushing the
colocation market.
This expansion is being driven to a large
extent by cloud service providers, who still
require a space to host their systems –
after all, even virtual servers need a home.
Businesses that subscribe to cloud and
hosting services involving a colocation
environment are inadvertently using
colocation more, even if they might
not be aware of it. We see this as a
key contributing factor to the overall
development of the global colocation
market, particularly in the short and
medium term.
www.intelligentdatacentres.com