Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2024. Read them in this 16th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Edge Computing Will be More Prominent
By Utpal Mangla, VP, Industry EDGE Cloud; IBM Cloud
Platform
As we head into 2024, enterprise priorities
and technologies will continue to evolve. Businesses are looking to address
demographic and international shifts, make supply chains more resilient and
improve sustainability, among other global challenges. Businesses are also
continuously looking for real time insights to fuel operations and ensuring
worldwide data sovereignty at edge. Technology serves as a fundamental source
of competitive advantage in tackling these issues. One of the competitive
advantages businesses can look to adopt is edge computing.
Edge computing with 5G creates tremendous opportunities in every
industry. It brings computation and data storage closer to where data is
generated, enabling better data control, reduced costs, faster insights and
actions, and continuous operations. IDC predicts that enterprise and service provider spending on
hardware, software, and services for edge solutions is forecast to sustain this
pace of growth through 2026 when spending will reach nearly $317 billion. [1] Heading into 2024, we're going to see even more edge computing take
shape across industries.
Edge Adoption Will
Increase as AI Adoption Increases
To meet the data processing and compute needs for
AI, we can expect to see more enterprises shifting their data center strategy
toward edge computing in 2024. An edge infrastructure allows the AI computation
to happen near the data center at the edge of a network instead of a private
data center. Since the data is being analyzed locally, there is potentially
better availability and more real-time analytics available. Edge computing also
helps to reduce networking costs since the processing is happening locally.
Edge computing can also address security and data residency concerns related to
AI adoption because it also allows companies to keep their data required for AI
use cases onsite and in country, respecting the sovereign regulatory
requirements.
Edge Computing
Will Support Sustainable Practices
With global climate
change concerns on the rise, businesses are under more pressure to be
sustainable and efficient with their IT infrastructure. Solutions like green
data centers can play a key role in helping organizations reach their ambitious
goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. [2] There needs to be
renewable sources like solar and wind-power energy so data centers can create
an energy-supply profile that better fit customer demands. The adoption of
technology solutions like edge computing will help reduce latency and the
energy requirements associated with long-distance data transfers to centralized
data centers; in turn contributing to energy efficiency and a reduction in
greenhouse gas emissions.
Edge computing helps reduce energy by the total
amount of data traversing the network, which reduces the overall energy
consumption in networks. Real-time analysis and monitoring make the transfer of
data across multiple networks unnecessary. With decisions made locally, energy
consumption is reduced. Edge computing also facilitates the deployment of smart
infrastructure, enhancing the efficiency and reliability of transportation
systems, energy grids, and public services. Governments are leveraging edge
analytics to reduce congestion and minimize environmental impact to build smarter
cities to improve quality of life for residents.
Edge Computing Will Drive New Consumer Experiences
for Retailers
The adoption of edge computing won't be industry agnostic, and in 2024,
we're going to see more industries adopt this technology to keep pace with
rapid digital transformation. One industry that we see as this technology
helping drive transformation is retail. For the retail industry,
adopting new technology that enhances consumer experience is critical to
staying competitive. In 2024, we will see retailers continue to move analytics,
AI and media workloads to the edge, allowing retailers to power these critical
workloads safely and securely. For example, a limiting factor of online grocery
shopping is the inability of the shopper to check on the quality of the produce
in the store. With edge computing, stores can enable AI-visual recognition
devices that will check the quality of the produce and validate it for the
shopper. We expect edge computing to continue to transform businesses across
the retail industry by advancing and streamlining customer experiences and
improving engagement.
As
companies look to keep pace with digital transformation in 2024 and beyond,
edge computing will be an important technological step they can take to bridge
gaps in their tech stack and remain competitive in the market.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Utpal Mangla is a VP responsible
for Distributed, Edge, Sovereign & Cloud Partnerships in IBM. He is
responsible for driving the growth of hybrid cloud for enterprises especially
in regulated industries. Utpal was previously the VP and Senior Partner in IBM
Consulting with focus on Telecommunications, Media, and Entertainment Industry
clients. In his role as an executive and thought leader in emerging
technologies, Utpal's mission is to fuel growth by building and implementing
differentiated competitive market service solution offerings to meeting
critical business imperatives of our customers. He is a regular speaker at
industry forums, university, and business conferences globally.
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[1] New IDC Spending Guide Forecasts Edge
Computing Investments Will Reach $208 Billion in 2023,
Michael
Shirer, IDC Research, February 2023