HPE CEO on importance of edge computing: ‘Data is our most valuable asset’
While there’s variation in how you define the edge—is it a consumer device, an enterprise LAN, a physical location, all three?—there’s clearly consensus that it’s going to be a big deal, as 5G networks enable latency-sensitive services and the internet of things keeps driving digital transformation.
Case in point, HPE announced this week at an event in Las Vegas that the company would invest $4 billion in what CEO Antonio Neri described intelligence at the edge as a key differentiator for businesses. “Enterprises that are able to act fast on all of their data, at the right moment will win.”
He continued: “The goal is to use our data to act on and to control the things that power and propel our enterprises, instantly. Accelerating time to value is the ultimate goal. Time to discovery. Time to market. Time innovation. Time to action…We intent to help our customers harvest the economic potential of every single byte everywhere, wherever it lives, from every edge to any cloud.”
HPE’s announcement is in step with what we’re hearing in the industry at large. Edge intelligence, powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, is a major priority for Intel. Last year Dell Technologies announced its plan to dump billions into the internet of things space of which edge is a key piece. One of the complications of deploying edge, particularly for telcos, is a function of real estate—where does all the equipment live?
Matt Trifiro, chief marketing officer of Austin, Texas-based Vapor IO, explained in a recent interview with RCR Wireless News the requirements for deploying edge data centers. “If you think about what you need to build edge computing infrastructure, you need three things: A way to house the equipment and cool it. You need real estate and ideally real estate that’s colocated with the wireless network infrastructure…and the third thing you need is fiber” in order to interconnect to other sites, backhaul networks and peering sites.
