Driverless cars. Autonomous robots. Smart cities.

A few years ago, these would have sounded like the core ingredients of a futuristic Sci-Fi movie. Today, they are a living and breathing reality. Thanks, in part, to edge computing.

Edge computing is revolutionising our lives and our businesses in ways we’ve never imagined or experienced before.

Edge computing allows companies to enhance how they manage and utilise physical assets to create innovative and novel interactive experiences. When combined with other technologies such as 5G, IoT, connected devices, containers, and SDN, to name a few, the potential of edge computing becomes almost limitless.

That’s something that organisations in the Asia Pacific and ASEAN regions will experience, according to research from Research and Markets, in the coming years. The mobile edge computing market in these regions is expected to grow by 34.3% annually with a total addressable market cap of $5,917 million over 2021-2030.

According to a study by GlobalData, the overall market for edge will touch US$17.8 billion by 2025 and APAC will account for 26.4% of spending.

This uptick is due to increasing interconnected devices in the regions, mobile data traffic, the rising need to improve end-user experience, and the demand for low-latency processing and real-time automated decision-making solutions.

In order to make the most of edge computing, we must understand what it really is and how it works, its benefits, and how to implement an effective edge computing strategy. Let’s take a closer look at edge computing.

What is Edge Computing and How it Works

Edge computing enables the distribution of application processes at the edge of the network and as near to the user as possible. This drastically reduces latency, enables faster data transmission, and significantly speeds up processes, compared to a larger, centralised data centre.

This essentially means instead of transmitting raw data to a central data centre for processing and analysis, this process takes place where the data is generated. For instance, data generation, processing and analysis happens at a factory floor, a retail store, or across a smart city. The outcome of all of this computing—equipment maintenance prediction, real-time business insights, and other actionable insights—is sent back to the main data centre for review.

An Accenture study states: “Edge computing uses locally generated data to enable real-time responsiveness to create new experiences, while at the same time controlling sensitive data and reducing costs of data transmission to the cloud.”

That’s something traditional forms of computing—where data is produced at the user’s computer and generated and stored in a data centre—can’t achieve. Simply because it will not be able to withstand the increasing number of devices and the volume of data generated by those devices in the near future.

Consider this: According to Gartner, 75% of enterprise-generated data will be created outside of centralised data centres by 2025.

This makes the need for edge computing even more pressing.

The Benefits of Edge Computing

Edge computing is on the rise and for good reason: It creates win-wins for multiple stakeholders. Its benefits span functions—including business and technology operations,—and adopters—from enterprises and end-users to platforms, such as OTTs.

• Better Application Performance: By moving compute and storage closer to where users are and where data is being created and processed, edge computing can generate higher levels of application performance because it both lowers latency, and increases the volume of data that can be dispatched over networks, and processed. This applies to applications used by employees working from home or in a distributed environment, and for applications that are receiving inputs from local sensors such as smart traffic systems that digest and process data from cameras and traffic radars, among others..
   
• Increased Efficiency and Resilience: Combining the power of the Internet of Thing (IoT) and machine learning can produce a range of enterprise applications that can heighten operational efficiency. Predictive maintenance of capital-intensive, business-critical factory equipment is a case in point. In most predictive maintenance implementations, a lot of machine telemetry is pre-processed at the edge. This enables greater efficiency outcomes for the business—which can lower asset downtime and lengthen their lifetime value. It also aids IoT installations, which witness higher connectivity and networking cost-efficiencies and increased application uptime.
   
• Improved Security Posture: Many edge computing applications need to process sensitive and highly-regulated information such as Personally Identifiable Information (PII), for example. Take the case of utilising vision AI at toll gates, or entry points that employ automated access-control software. Biometric data—in the form of thumb prints or video-grabs of faces—represent sensitive data which needs to be handled with care. Edge computing offers enterprises the ability to store and process such data without exposing it to cloud platforms that could infringe on data sovereignty laws.
   
• Enhanced Customer Experience and Innovation: Real time, data-rich applications—that depend heavily on edge computing architectures—are the foundation for new services that produce unparalleled levels of customer experience and innovation. It can, for instance, revolutionise in-stadium experiences at live sporting events. By bringing together the power of 5G and edge computing, stadiums can enrich the experience of fans, while building new revenue streams, and spawning competitive differentiation. Now, fans can access live, high-definition feeds from a number of cameras—something they have never had before–and stitch their own content, as if they were mini-broadcasters. They can also leverage new layers of real-time game analytics and embed those in their own content.
   

The Power of TM Edge Computing

TM Global offers an edge compute platform that enables a distributed Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) infrastructure that brings computation and data storage closer to the location of the user or applications. TM Global provides TM Edge facilities that are closer to the edge of TM’s network, end users, and devices, delivering fast services with minimal latency.

With TM Edge computing, gain wide coverage, faster delivery, low latency, high availability, and better security. Step into a new world of possibilities with TM Edge Computing.