BRAZIL - 2022/03/22: In this photo illustration, a woman's silhouette holds a smartphone with a ... [+]
Computing moves. We started off in the punchcard-driven rooms of the early mainframe era at the back end of the 1950s and then pushed towards the mini-computer (like a mainframe, but a bit smaller) era before we progressed forward again into the time of the 'personal' computer, a device that still quite closely resembles the modern machines we are used to today.
For a while, throughout the 1980s and as we approached the still much-loved Microsoft Windows 95 operating system, computing stayed comparatively still. Then things started to move again, the Internet went from the static pages of the early web to embrace D-HTML (the D standing for dynamic, if it were not obvious) and then the cloud came along and we started to think about how we could produce smaller mobile machines from smartphones to nanotechnology devices - and then ultimately, we started to build the miniaturized sensors, accelerometers and other paraphernalia that now populates the Internet of Things (IoT) out on the computing edge.
No more potted history of tech is needed; we now exist in a time and space where compute happens out on the edge and so we need to be able to create smarter devices for this arena.
What is device smartness?
In the realm of edge computing, device smartness doesn't just mean the application of Artificial Intelligence (although it does mean that too), it also means enabling these typically smaller machines with the ability to perform processing functions when offline and disconnected, it also means preparing them for the 5G revolution (and the one that will inevitably follow after that) and it means building them in a way that makes them precision-engineered to industry-specific use cases.
Cloud infrastructure services conglomerate NTT and application-specific semiconductor and 5G chipset specialist Qualcomm appear to have been following the progression that the IT industry has been on as contextualized thus far. The firms are now working to jointly innovate and invest in the future of 5 G-enabled devices.
Industry 4.0 + 5G ecosystem
But why are these two big firms working in unison right now? Much of the rationale must come down to the way we are working to create so-called Industry 4.0 applications i.e. ones that come after the third industrial revolution with its 'basic' IT-enablement and deliver us into the fourth revolutionary cycle where we also get to use AI. But AI as in what, chatbots? Not in the first instance (although we might interact with IoT machines that use chat robot chat interfaces at some level further down the line), this is about the application of AI to enable smarter processing capabilities at the edge. It's about knowing which data to prioritize on, what order to sequence processing, what weight to ascribe to different data flows and what device data might be erroneous, duplicated or otherwise likely to make it less important than the mission-critical stuff.
“This collaboration is truly an exciting one because we are answering the demand we’re hearing from our clients. Together with Qualcomm, we will strengthen the 5G ecosystem delivering the devices our customers require in a simple and cost-effective way, empowering them as they continue along their digital transformation journey,” said Shahid Ahmed, EVP for the new ventures & innovation team at NTT. “By working with Qualcomm, we will further accelerate demand for private 5G across global industries.”
This co-innovation is hoped to deliver 5G-ready devices equipped to support Industry 4.0 applications and the integration of technologies at the edge across industries from manufacturing to transportation and smart cities. NTT and stopped at listing ‘just’ those three zones or industries, but we can see these devices now being applicable to everything from healthcare to oil & gas to agriculture and so on.
Device-as-a-Service
NTT is also using the news of its expanded partnership with Qualcomm to make note of its Device-as-a-Service offering, a software services product designed to help enterprises use 'devices' - which they may not own in physical terms, but are able to login to and draw information from in the OpEx-not-CapEx services style format that we associate with cloud computing - to investigate new avenues of innovation, to boost IT maintenance productivity and to reduce costs. This is part of NTT’s hyphen-enriched end-to-end Edge-as-a-Service offering, the company is now offering Device-as-a-Service, in order to make it easy for customers to access, upgrade and recycle 5G and edge devices and simplify device lifecycle management.
An early entrant into the private 5G space (as defined by Cisco, a private 5G network as a service is an alternative to buying, building and managing a private mobile network) some two years ago, NTT says it is building an ecosystem with partners like Celona, Cisco, Microsoft and VMware.
What this manifests itself as in terms of a computing reality is customers now being able to sign up for Edge-as-a-Service (which in this case will include capabilities spanning private 5G, edge and IoT), all of which is hoped to help organizations now embrace what is being called Sustainability-as-a-Service practices i.e. becoming more eco-adept due to the use of services-based cloud for all manner of software (and now also hardware) based requirements.
Analyst house IDC estimates that enterprise adoption of private 5G as a market, will exceed $8 billion by 2026. With enterprises accelerating digitization, more connectivity and more devices are needed. NTT and Qualcomm say they will use their combined expertize to meet the need for 5G-enabled devices that support use cases, such as push-to-talk devices, augmented reality headsets, computer vision cameras and sensors at the edge across the manufacturing, automotive, logistics and other industries.
“The proliferation of 5G-enabled devices is a critical component of shaping a more digital and sustainable future. It forms the backbone of many tech advancements that can improve efficiency and sustainability through efficient resource management and energy conservation, which and are pivotal for innovation across various industries,” said Mark Bidinger, president, commercial & industrial segments & channels at Schneider Electric.
AI needs to get hybrid
NTT's Ahmed says that for AI to scale and make an impact on enterprise operations and organizations’ bottom line, AI processing needs to happen in a hybrid form i.e. both in the cloud datacenter and at the edge of the network, on those small smart devices. The silicon that Qualcomm develops includes built-in AI and machine learning models for AI capabilities at the edge. Qualcomm has previously created technologies capable of scaling AI technology across a range of devices and applications including smartphones, laptops, sensors, automotive solutions and networking.
“Qualcomm Technologies’ 5G chipsets are prepared for the widespread adoption of AI applications at the edge and, together with NTT, we’ll enhance innovative change across the 5G device ecosystem.” said Atul Suri, ice resident, strategy & analysis, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
Qualcomm and NTT will now work together to deliver 5G-ready devices with AI models built in to enhance AI at the edge through various applications. Industry 4.0 involves industry leaders seeking technological innovation that will enable them to shift focus from traditional business concepts to circular models, reconfiguring their offerings to meet customer demand for years to come.
Data visibility, control & security
What a lot of this whole discussion comes down to here are three major factors: data visibility, control & security. NTT and Qualcomm say that they will prioritize the need to provide a broad overlay of 5G connectivity across all manufacturing sites globally. The companies also say that they are striving to achieve operational excellence through better data control. Once deployed, NTT's private 5G network (often now capitalized to Private 5G to denote its platform-level technology status) will provide user sites with connectivity across an organization's global footprint.
The emergence and current development of technologies in this space are (arguably) so new, so subject to rapid change and reinvention and so utterly still nascent in every aspect that it is hard to make long-term (or even medium-term) projections on where we will be in this space in the next five years. Safe and suffice to say that we will all be getting used to an increasing amount of ever-smarter devices and the services they deliver to us, even if some of those benefits are so abstracted in 'cool app functions' that we never truly understand what is happening beneath.
