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The ongoing growth of cellular wireless network applications creates new demand for emerging technologies. Fifth-generation (5G) wireless communication includes several network layers that leverage technology such as Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN), network slicing, and cloud edge computing.

Within cloud-edges, the broader artificial intelligence (AI) industry is witnessing a migration of AI to the edge. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, the edge AI training and inference market for chipsets is expected to grow from $2.6 billion in 2020 to $10.7 billion in 2025, at a CAGR of 35 percent.

Furthermore, new enterprise use cases place new performance, agility, and latency requirements on the network. These, along with the ongoing quest to drive new growth, are compelling the industry to shed human-intensive networks in favor of an intelligence-driven ecosystem.

According to the ABI assessment, telecom service providers are already actively expanding the utilisation of AI and machine learning (ML) beyond merely digitising internal and external interactions.

Many communication service providers (CSPs) are already on a journey to become augmented service providers where AI augments human decision making for prediction, analysis, and new revenues, said Don Alusha, senior analyst at ABI Research.

Rakuten, for example, has renamed its network operations centres (NOCs) to service experience centres (SECs) as it implements extreme automation for self-aware networks. In addition, Telefnica Tech is a new venture to incubate new growth based on AI/ML, cloud and IoT/big data.

AI/ML capabilities enable the industry to leverage IT-oriented nimbleness and scale as they seek to manage the complexities of todays networks and establish new commercial models, Alusha adds.

New commercial models will need to complement existing asset-intensive environments where an understanding of the cost of goods sold, inventory turns, managing factories, and supply chains is key to success. In the new world of cloud, AI/ML, and software, technology vendors do not manufacture a product and sell it.

They sell a capability. They sell knowledge. They create it at the same time they deliver it. The business model is different and so are the economics. DriveNets, Enea Openwave, Ericsson, HPE, and Nokia are some vendors among many others that are building software-centric ways of marketing and selling solutions. The point is that AI/ML-based platforms are re-shaping existing commercial models. The winners will be those who act decisively and thoughtfully, Alusha says.

For CSPs, the continued maturity of AI/ML will be a key enabler of new value creation in their journey to become a digital service provider. Technology is a key pillar of that journey, but there are other key dimensions, that if not considered part of the overall digitalisation journey, may limit CSPs ability to capture the full value at stake.

Specifically, change management is critical and constitutes the bulk of the effort as CSPs embrace new ways of working. Equally important is to embrace openness and break the siloes, two sides of the same coin. CSPs that are investing in AI/ML-based platforms must consider that efficiency will come from sharing knowledge and embracing open platforms where APIs and data can be easily accessed.

AI/ML, big data, and open APIs offer agility and the ability to drive innovation. Consequently, the new world in cellular must start with a foundation on software and API-led connectivity. The ability to harness the power of software-defined networking platforms and AI/ML capabilities are the future.

This may well mean that, in addition to bolting on software and intelligent capabilities, CSPs need to learn how to build them as cloud-edges, Open RAN, and 5G core proliferates in the ecosystem, Alusha concludes.

This is an emerging market where mobile network operators can differentiate their network services with value-added offerings. I believe that open innovation methodologies will enable service providers to engage their chosen technology partners that become part of evolving and expansive 5G ecosystems.

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their experiences and use-cases? Attend theCyber Security & Cloud Expo World Serieswith upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more.

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How cloud-based AI is set to transform mobile apps - Cloud Tech

Thomas Kurian, chief executive officer of cloud services at Google LLC, speaks during the Google Cloud Next '19 event in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, April 9, 2019. The conference brings together industry experts to discuss the future of cloud computing.

Michael Short | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google cloud chief Thomas Kurian said Wednesday that he's focused on growth for now, with an eye toward profitability later on.

"We're working closely with Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat to improve our operating margin and operating loss, which will both benefit from increased scale over time," Kurian told Heath Terry, a Goldman Sachs managing director, at the virtual Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference. "Scale will bring material improvements in profitability. And we're very focused on that. We know in this business we need scale in order to be profitable."

Investors are looking for reassurance that Google's its years-long investment in cloud computing can contribute to rather than detract from the profitability of Google parent Alphabet. Growth could also make Google more competitive with market leader Amazon, which derives almost half of its income from its cloud division.

Kurian's comments come a week after Google parent Alphabet for the first time disclosed the operating results of the cloud unit, which includes the Google Cloud Platform public cloud infrastructure and Google Workspace productivity software subscriptions. The unit has lost at least $4 billion in each of the last three years, and finished 2020 with a loss of $5.61 billion on $13.06 billion in revenue. Revenue growth slowed slightly from 53% in 2019 to 47% in 2020.

The Google Cloud organization remains focused on accelerating revenue growth, said Kurian, who replaced Diane Greene as head of Google's cloud group two years ago after spending two decades at Oracle.

Kurian said Google is keen to launch cloud infrastructure in more countries in order to satisfy organizations' regulatory needs. He pointed to uptake in Indonesia and South Korea. At the same time, Google Cloud continues to invest in expanding its sales function. Kurian said the business is on track to expand its direct sales organization by more than three times

"We really believe we have a good line of sight on how as you scale investments," he said. "That opens up markets and opens up revenue."

Nominations are open for the 2021 CNBC Disruptor 50, a list of private start-ups using breakthrough technology to become the next generation of great public companies. Submit by Friday, Feb. 12, at 3 pm EST.

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Google Cloud boss is focused on growth: 'We need scale in order to be profitable' - CNBC

CloudSphere, a cloud governance provider based primarily in the United States and Ireland, has only been going for six months. Yet the company has a unique approach and a big mission and believes it has found the right person to lead it.

Jane Gilson, formerly of Google and Microsoft the latter where she helped lead cloud transformation and build data centre strategy was appointed at the end of last month. CloudSphere said Gilsons extensive international experience background with software as a service models, and her understanding of cloud customer needs will help the company scale to the next level.

CloudSphere is a combined entity of HyperGrid, a provider of cloud management and governance, and iQuate, a company focused on agentless discovery and application mapping. The latter is key to the companys strategy. By focusing on an application-centric vision of cloud governance, the proposed solution offers granularity in areas such as migration planning, cloud cost management, and cloud security posture management.

The company therefore sits squarely as a middleman, offering monitoring, compliance or consulting arguably all three for the complex hyperscaler clouds. Demand for this type of business particularly with the rise of multi-cloud workloads continues to rise. MarketsandMarkets pegged CAGR of the cloud monitoring market at 19.2% between 2016 and 2022.

For Gilson, these complementary factors all helped inform her decision to join. The enterprise adoption of multi-cloud architectures is a once-in-a-generation transformation of the IT landscape, she tells CloudTech. CloudSphere is uniquely positioned to address the resulting cloud governance and management challenges.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform comprise almost two thirds of the global cloud infrastructure services market. Synergy Research pegged it at the beginning of this month at 32%, 20% and 9% respectively. CloudSphere has partnerships with all three, and Gilson is looking to bolster this going forward.

The hyperscalers are constantly adding new capabilities on their platforms, and we need to work closely with them to make sure we understand their plans and how we can help our customers take advantage of those new capabilities, says Gilson. That takes a consistent dialogue and a commitment to the partnership.

We also see the hyperscalers as a route to market, Gilson adds. Our cloud governance platform is available on both the AWS and Azure marketplaces because our customers have made it clear that they like the simplicity and economics of buying software through their cloud provider.

Another factor informing CloudSpheres growth acceleration is, understandably, Covid-19. As companies bolster their cloud migrations, it has a knock-on effect for other areas. According to Centrify research, as this publication reported in November, 73% of enterprises polled had accelerated their migration plans to support remote working. 81% sped up their IT modernisation processes.

This relates to Gilsons view of enterprise adoption of multi-cloud as once-in-a-generation. Cloud adoption has been forced through a 5-10 year acceleration in the last 12 months, she says. As cloud adoption accelerates amid the Covid-19 pandemic, IDC forecasts worldwide spending on cloud services will surpass $1 trillion in 2024.

Multi-cloud strategies are now the norm, and with 81% of organisations using two or more cloud providers already, securing and governing multi-cloud environments is a top IT challenge facing enterprises, Gilson adds.

The opportunity is clear: organisations desperately need simple, comprehensive security and governance amid the complexity.

Gilson believes CloudSphere has the right approach and tech differentiation to become a worldwide leader in this space. This approach will be defined by her leadership. What is the best piece of advice she has been given in her career and why? Own your seat at the table, take that job you dont feel fully ready to do, and build and nurture your network, says Gilson. It will pay dividends.

The journey CloudSphere and Gilson will take from here is certainly worth keeping an eye on.

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their experiences and use-cases? Attend theCyber Security & Cloud Expo World Serieswith upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more.

Tags: AWS, azure, cloud governance, cloudsphere, google cloud, hyperscalers

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Jane Gilson, CEO, CloudSphere: On taking the top job and the huge enterprise multi-cloud opportunity - Cloud Tech

The International Space Station will soon get a delivery of powerful AI, edge and cloud computing tools from HPE and Microsoft Azure to expand technology experiments aimed at preparing NASA for launching future crewed exploratory missions to Mars.

The new equipment and software, including HPEs specialized, second-generation Spaceborne Computer-2 (SBC-2), will mark the first time that broad AI and edge computing capabilities will be available to researchers on the space station, Tom Keane, Microsofts vice president of Azure Global, wrote in a Feb. 11 post on the Azure blog.

The new hardware, software and services are scheduled for launch to the ISS at 12:36 p.m. on Feb. 20 aboard Northrop Grummans 15th(NG-15) Commercial Resupply Services cargo mission. The NG-15 missions launch from the Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island, Virginia, is contracted by NASA to bring needed supplies.

The new SBC-2 computer thats heading to the space station follows the original Spaceborne Computer-1 that was sent to the ISS in 2017 as part of a validation study to test it in the rigors of space aboard the orbiting laboratory. SBC-1 returned to earth in 2019 after completing its mission. Both Spaceborne Computer-1 and Spaceborne Computer-2 are sponsored by the ISS National Lab.

SBC-2 will bring ISS researchers a wide range of new capabilities they did not have with the original Spaceborne machine from 2017 to 2019, Dr. Mark Fernandez, solution architect for converged edge systems at HPE and principal investigator for SBC-2 told HPCwire sister site EnterpriseAI. Technological advancements in AI, cloud and more will provide more possibilities in the new machine for ISS researchers, he said.

Hardware-wise, were sending up the HPE Edgeline Converged EL4000 Edge system, which is purpose-engineered and built to operate on the edge and take advantage of AI and ML capabilities with its onboard Nvidia T4 GPUs, said Fernandez. These are enterprise-class, commercial off-the-shelf servers that go into data centers.

Featuring CPUs and GPUs

The Edgeline EL4000 servers will use Nvidia T4 GPUs for AI and machine learning, image processing, video processing and other tasks. Previously, the first SBC-1 used CPUs for those tasks. The latest SBC-2 will include CPUs and GPUs to allow for comparison performance experimentation in space.

The 1U boxes insert into standard data center 19-inch racks on the ISS. The racks are then inserted into lockers aboard the ISS to hold them securely. Also provided are an enterprise-class compute node, HPEs ProLiant DL360, for intense compute requirements, said Fernandez.

For the second generation of the SBC, NASA asked HPE to send up twice the compute power of the original version, said Fernandez. So, were sending up twice the number of servers. Youll see two lockers and each contains two servers.

One is a CPU-based Intel server for those that love Intel and traditional computing, and well have a GPU-based Edgeline server for those that are doing image processing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, etc., said Fernandez.

NASA asked for double the computing power in the SBC-2 so the agency can continue its work toward sending humans to Mars, he said. SBC-1 was a proof-of-concept device for 18 months and now the new SBC-2 will be tested to see how it reacts to two to three years in space to accommodate a mission to Mars, he added.

Azure in Space

The Azure cloud capabilities will be used with the machines to allow experiments with getting data back and forth from the ISS to Earth as quickly and efficiently as possible, said Fernandez. Such data transfers are done today using existing NASA technologies.

The ISS is only 220 miles up in Earth orbit, but the networking is circa-1980, said Fernandez. We have speeds of two megabits a second up and down to the ISS. I have 50 megabits a second in my home.

Increasing those speeds will be critical for Mars missions, he said.

Microsoft is enabling that, and they have aspirational plans to come up with some AI and machine learning that well look at, said Fernandez. One idea they will look at is running data on SBC-2 and then sending small amounts of data back to Earth, and then comparing that to bursting data to Azure and seeing what works faster.

Were sitting right on top of the same NASA network, but were going to encode and compress messages back and forth in order to take the most advantage of that two megabytes per second, he said. I have a brilliant scientist who is going to run the same experiment on CPUs, on GPUs and in the cloud. And he will report back to the community, if you have this type of data, its best if you process it this way because we are given those three options.

The experiments will begin after the equipment arrives at the ISS and following their installation and setup. Those tasks are expected to take some time to complete, including several days for the cargo mission to arrive at the space station. Weve got three pre-canned experiments for three different users that were going to hope to fire off right away, said Fernandez.

How Azure Views Its Mission Aboard the ISS

The crux of this work is about making the capabilities of Azure available toastronauts, space explorers andresearchers to learn and advance science and the use of the cloud to support their goals, a Microsoft spokesperson told EnterpriseAI. Through this project we will be able to continue to gain knowledge onhow wecanbest support thescience andresearch community, wherever they are, on and off the planet.

With SBC-2, Microsofts research and Azure space engineering teams are evaluating the potential of HPEs [space-based] state-of-the-art processing in conjunction with hyperscale Azure, alongside the development of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning models to support new insights and research advancements, the spokesperson said.

That includes weather-modeling of dust storms to enable future modeling for Mars missions, plant and hydroponics analysis to support food growth and life sciences in space, and medical imaging experiments using an ultrasound on the ISS to support astronaut healthcare.Also being created is a platform for the development and testing of hybrid edge-cloud environments before contributing additional experiments to the ISS.

We are exploring the potential of empoweringexciting newexperiments thatleveragethe far-reaching potential of the cloudin conjunction with theHPE Edge capabilities, the spokesperson said. To date, researchershavehad tooften limitthe scope of theirstudytowhat computationalresources theyhadavailable to conduct their research.

Using bursting capabilities with Azure will add to future capabilities, according to Microsoft. Bursting down to the cloud provides access to more computation/resources than can be hosted in the ISS, while leveraging SBC-2s power and proximityat the edge, the spokesperson said. We are excitedto empower others, even in space,tobeable to leveragethe power ofMicrosoftAzuremaking it possible forastronauts, space explorers, andresearchers to thinkbig astheytackle theirtoughestquestions.

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Microsoft, HPE Bringing AI, Edge, Cloud to Earth Orbit in Preparation for Mars Missions - HPCwire

Volkswagen AG on Thursday said it will use Microsoft Corps cloud computing services to help it streamline its software development efforts for self-driving cars. Volkswagen, which owns brands such as Audi and Porsche, is working on both self-driving cars for the future and driver-assistance features such as adaptive cruise control in current vehicles. But the companys brand had been developing those features independently.

Last year, Volkswagen consolidated some of those development efforts into a subsidiary called Car. Software to better coordinate among the makers, with each company handling its own work around the look and feel of the software while collaborating on core safety functions such as detecting obstacles.

But the various companies inside the group were still using different systems to develop that software, and the deal announced Thursday will put them on a common cloud provider, Dirk Hilgenberg, chief executive of Car. Software, told Reuters in an interview.

The Microsoft deal will also make deploying software updates to add new features to cars a practice that helped set Tesla Inc apart from many rivals early on much easier. Volkswagen in 2018 inked a deal with Microsoft to connect its cars to Microsofts Azure cloud computing service.

The Thursday deal means that the software updates will be developed on the same cloud that will then beam those updates down to the cars.Over-the-air updates are paramount, Hilgenberg said. This functionality needs to be there.

If you cant do it, you will lose ground.In practical terms, the deal means that cars that initially hit the road with a few driver-assistance features today could add new capabilities over time that bring them closer to autonomous driving, said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of cloud and artificial intelligence at Microsoft.For our phones 15 or 20 years ago, when you bought it, it pretty much never changed. Now, we expected every week or every couple of days that, silently, theres new features, Guthrie told Reuters in an interview. That ability to start to program the vehicle in richer and richer ways, and in a safe way, transforms how the experience works.

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Volkswagen taps Microsofts cloud to develop self-driving software - The Indian Express