Artificial Intelligence (AI) has quickly transformed various aspects of everyday life, offering unprecedented advancements in technology that benefit enterprises and consumers alike. From deep learning tools to new product creation and task automation, AI has quickly cemented itself as commonplace in numerous industries as businesses swiftly begin to leverage the application to help accelerate business decision-making and boost profitability, among other beneficial capabilities.
The market for AI, as imagined, is growing substantially and rapidly as more industries continue to find valuable use cases for the technology. In fact, as of the latest data from late 2023, the global AI market value has reached USD 196.63 billion, a staggering rise of over USD 60 billion since 2022. Furthermore, AI is expected to continue to flourish as the world becomes more digital, as experts predict growth at a CAGR of 38 percent until 2030.
As advantageous as AI is, the application is certainly not without its drawbacks. For instance, most AI processes are currently performed in cloud-based centers, as they require substantial computing capacity. The downside to this, unfortunately, is that connectivity or network issues can result in downtime or a significant slowdown of the service, directly impacting the real-time aspect of AI’s capabilities.
Aiming to mitigate these AI connectivity issues is ZEDEDA – a fast-growing startup that provides edge orchestration solutions. It recently announced it has raised $72 million, underscoring investor eagerness to back businesses innovating in the AI realm.
The funding was led by Smith Point Capital, a venture firm founded by former Salesforce Inc. co-CEO Keith Block, with returning investors including Lux Capital, Chevron Technology Ventures, and Porsche Ventures.
According to a person familiar with the matter, the funding round values the company at about $400 million, double its $193 million value at the time of its last round in 2022. This jump in funding for ZEDEDA contrasts with an investing environment where startup funding has slowed to levels not seen in five years.
“The one thing AI needs is data,” said Claudio Fayad, vice president for technology at Emerson Automation Solutions, which is rolling out ZEDEDA to some customers as part of its products. He states the data gives more efficient results when crunched locally for tasks like predictive maintenance.
ZEDEDA specializes in edge computing, defined as the group of networks and devices that process data as close as possible to the user instead of in a data center far away. The computing demands of AI make this a different, vastly more data-intensive challenge, the San Jose, California-based company said.
When it comes to AI, the edge holds the potential to revolutionize AI further beyond its already impressive capabilities. ZEDEDA removes connectivity and network issues by bringing the AI capabilities as close to the data source as possible. This enables AI applications to run directly on field devices, processing field data and running machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) algorithms.
Improving AI connectivity with the edge can be applied in various sectors, with examples of use cases for ZEDEDA’s tools, including managing panels in solar fields or making decisions on an oil rig. The trick to operating modern edge computing smoothly is orchestration, meaning ensuring remote devices have the processing capabilities to work together.
Referring to the ability to manage, automate, and coordinate the flow of resources between multiple types of devices, infrastructure, and network domains at the edge of a network, edge orchestration allows businesses and organizations to efficiently route data resources to avoid bottlenecks, reduce latency, and scale their network as needed.
This is the area that ZEDEDA is setting out to streamline to bring the enhanced capabilities of an AI-edge unison to more organizations. With more companies turning to AI than ever before, the ability to optimize AI’s data generation and real-time abilities through the edge can be the difference between flying and falling for an enterprise during the digital era.
“It can adapt over time and detect more nuanced situations,” said Fayad, who is finding that while many enterprises have relied on analytics software for most tasks, increasingly AI is becoming the preferred tool. “AI can give you a far richer analysis and recommendation.”
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