Lionel Sujay Vailshery
Research expert covering cloud computing and emerging tech industries
Edge Computing - statistics & facts
With the advent of smart sensors and connected technologies, massive amounts of data produced that demand real-time processing that has been enabled by the internet of things. This demand is met by leveraging edge computing technology to make this data useful with a quick turnaround time. Edge computing has been made possible with the advancement of鈥cloud computing technologies鈥 and advancing network technologies allowing companies and individuals to take advantage of services offered by cloud computing providers such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google to store and process their data in virtual space or the 鈥渃loud鈥. However, the transmission of data between the endpoints and the cloud datacenters hosted by the provider consumes a great deal of energy and is hampered by latency, meaning that cloud solutions may not be appropriate for every case.
What is edge computing?
With a rapid growing鈥痭umber of devices鈥痑ble to connect to each other, more and more of them require faster computing with low latency for various use-cases driving computing at the 鈥渆dge鈥 of the network. The so-called 鈥淭hird Act of the Internet鈥 according to the Linux foundation reports, the edge of the network of devices is where a lot of the data storage and processing will take place in the future, giving rise to the term edge computing.
Edge computing is about delivering computing capabilities to the local points of a network, through which greater performance, lower latency and lower costs in operations are achieved. For example,鈥痵mart home devices perform little to no computational work; requests are mostly sent from the device to servers owned by the smart speaker provider. Using edge computing, smart speakers would be able to receive and process a user鈥檚 request entirely on the device itself.
IoT, 5G, and edge
The need for localized network infrastructure and computing power is highlighted by the ever-growing鈥Internet of Things (IoT), a term used to describe the network of connected devices. A growing amount of鈥痙ata鈥痠s generated at the endpoints, burdening the traditional network structure.
The emergence and application of鈥5G, the fifth generation of cellular network technologies that allows for much greater bandwidth and density of connected devices, accelerates the growth of IoT while paving the way for edge computing.鈥AI-optimized processors, which provide greater computing power, also enable wider adoption of edge systems.
Edge computing market and outlook
Edge computing has become a big market and continues to grow at a great speed 鈥 the鈥forecast global revenue鈥痠s set to reach 350 billion U.S. dollars by 2027. Some industries such as manufacturing, and telecommunications have already put鈥痠mplementations of edge solutions鈥痮n the schedule. Businesses look to gain鈥痓enefits鈥痵uch as new core business functions and capabilities as well as the improvement of monitoring, response, and site reliability from their edge strategy. The interest in edge has exploded since 2015. In 2015, there were only 720鈥new papers related to edge computing on Google Scholar鈥 that number has grown to more than 42,700 in 2023. 聽
