The marriage of artificial intelligence (AI) and edge computing, known as Edge AI, is revolutionizing how we process and analyze data. This innovative approach tackles limitations inherent in traditional cloud-based AI, offering unique benefits and addressing critical challenges.

The Edge of Advantage: Why Choose Edge AI?

While cloud-based AI has revolutionized various aspects of data processing, it faces limitations. Concerns regarding latency, security, and cost can hinder its full potential.  However, Edge AI emerges as a game-changer, offering distinct advantages that address these limitations and, in more details, offers:

• Reduced Data Transfer: Only processed data is sent to the cloud, significantly minimizing bandwidth consumption and network congestion.
• Real-Time Processing: Data is analyzed directly at the source, enabling faster decision-making, crucial for applications like accident prevention and remote surgery.
• Enhanced Security and Privacy: Sensitive data is kept locally, minimizing the risk of exposure during transmission. Edge AI can even anonymize data before sending it to the cloud for further analysis.
• Unwavering Availability: Edge devices can operate even when disconnected, ensuring uninterrupted service during network outages or cyberattacks.
• Cost-Effectiveness: Processing data locally reduces reliance on expensive cloud storage and transmission costs.

Challenges that Local Intelligence addresses

Traditional AI relies heavily on the cloud, introducing issues like latency and security risks. Edge AI tackles this by processing data directly on devices. This “local intelligence” conquers challenges by enabling real-time decisions, keeping sensitive data secure, and ensuring continuous operation even when disconnected from the cloud. In more details, here are the five main challenges that Local Intelligence addresses:

• Security and Privacy: Sensitive data remains local with Edge AI, mitigating the risk of breaches during transmission to centralized cloud systems.
• Operational Efficiency: Lightweight monitoring solutions track system performance, ensuring optimal functionality.
• Real-Time Decisions: By processing data directly on devices, Edge AI eliminates latency issues, enabling applications like autonomous vehicles to react in real-time.
• Uninterrupted Operations: Edge AI systems can function even when disconnected, guaranteeing continuous service despite network fluctuations or hardware failures.
• Device Compatibility: Standardized protocols ensure seamless communication between various edge devices, fostering interoperability across diverse environments.

The EdgeAI advantage and the role of ITML

The EdgeAI project recognizes limitations of cloud-based AI, like latency, security risks, and costs. To address these, EdgeAI aims to create new technologies for intelligent processing at the edge of networks, using low-power, real-time AI hardware and software. This will improve efficiency, security, and reduce the environmental impact of AI applications in various industries like manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and transportation. EdgeAI also plan to develop a strong European ecosystem for edge AI technology and expertise, ultimately creating new business opportunities.

Within this ecosystem, ITML plays a critical role in designing AI-based systems for anomaly detection, a key capability for many edge AI applications, as well as in deploying of federated learning approaches. Federated learning is a privacy-preserving technique that allows training AI models on distributed data sets without compromising sensitive information. Besides that, ITML will also focus on integrating and verifying the effectiveness of its AI-based solutions within the transportation and mobility industry.

EdgeAI “Edge AI Technologies for Optimised Performance Embedded Processing” project has received funding from Chips Joint Undertaking (Chips JU) under grant agreement No 101097300. The Chips JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program and Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway.

More information in: https://edge-ai-tech.eu/