To enterprises: Edge AI deployment has never been easier

With the rapid development of science and technology, mankind is entering a new era driven by AI. In this era, data is everywhere, algorithms are becoming more sophisticated, and AI is reshaping the business model of enterprises in an unprecedented way, changing the face of all walks of life.

At the recently concluded 17th Intel Network and Edge Computing Industry Conference, Intel demonstrated how the combination of AI and edge computing will reshape business development models and change the future of people's work and life.

In the technological wave led by AI, enterprises are at the forefront of transformation. Imagine that in the near future, AI will form a highly intelligent ecosystem that automates all the work that enterprises need to perform. They are like an efficient and collaborative team, leading by human wisdom, generating huge productivity and benefits. This is exactly the "ultimate blueprint" of AI evolution that Sachin Katti, Intel's senior vice president and general manager of the Network and Edge Division, has drawn for us.

Sachin Katti believes that AI is undoubtedly expected to become the most disruptive technology in recent decades. The AI ​​transformation of enterprises will be a gradual evolutionary process, which can be divided into three significant stages. The first is the AI-assisted era. In this stage, AI serves as an auxiliary tool or assistant for humans to enhance human capabilities and improve work efficiency. Next, humans will soon enter the era of AI assistants. Enterprises will develop models for specific fields and program AI agents to autonomously handle the workflow in that field. Ultimately, humans will usher in the era of full-featured AI. During this period, AI agents will achieve seamless and efficient collaboration, jointly perform complex department-level tasks, and promote comprehensive automation across the enterprise. Therefore, even a startup that is just starting out, even with only one employee, can create huge value and benefits with the help of AI.

Sachin Katti envisions not only the future of technology, but also an era full of imagination and possibilities. Intel is willing to work with partners to explore the boundaries of AI and edge computing innovation, so that technological progress can become a driving force for social progress and human well-being.

IDC data shows that China's investment in generative AI is rapidly increasing at a compound annual growth rate of 86.2% from 2022 to 2027. Dan Rodriguez, vice president and general manager of Intel's Network and Edge Solutions Division, pointed out that the integrated application of generative AI based on large models and edge computing is not only strong, but will also bring far-reaching benefits and innovation opportunities to all walks of life.

Video analysis is one of the typical application areas. The innovation of edge AI has been widely used in various scenarios such as smart parking, medical testing and retail checkout. With the help of Intel technology, software vendors can achieve end-to-end video analysis and accurately identify target objects through feature matching and image similarity detection supported by large visual models, providing strong support for smart communities and building security.

In the retail industry, traditional self-service checkout machines are often limited by the lack of recognition technology and often cannot guarantee a high checkout success rate. The combination of visual big models and edge computing provides efficient visual analysis performance, which not only provides operators with a reliable loss prevention solution, but also eliminates the embarrassing experience of customers being questioned and manually checked during self-service checkout.

In the field of life sciences, many scientific research institutions face challenges in regulations, costs, and bandwidth, and many sensitive data cannot be processed in the cloud. Intel AI Suite helps institutions overcome these obstacles by performing efficient data processing and AI analysis locally, promoting the advancement of scientific research and treatment.

The digital human that people are familiar with today is also the "masterpiece" of generative AI. The Intel interactive digital human "Xiaoying" that appeared at the conference is a digital human that is fully deployed on the edge. It not only achieves 4K 60-frame high-definition rendering, but also integrates advanced large language models and RAG (retrieval enhancement generation) technology, and can flexibly respond to various roles - whether as a customer service representative in a business hall, a shopping guide in a shopping mall, or a guide in a museum, it can provide professional and vivid services. Intel hopes to integrate the warmth of technology into daily life, so that technology can not only improve efficiency, but also add humanistic care. This is exactly what we are pursuing unremittingly.

Edge computing has entered the public eye with its excellent real-time performance and low latency, and has quickly become a rising star in the computing family. Especially with the advent of the Internet of Things era, the increasing demand for real-time performance and resource optimization has promoted the development and large-scale application of edge computing technology.

Dr. Chen Wei, Intel Vice President and General Manager of the Network and Edge Business Unit in China, said that considering the comprehensive computing power, edge reasoning capabilities and cost, edge AI is a nascent market. In the process of promoting the implementation of edge AI, Intel has been advancing along two lines of thought: one is +AI, which is to integrate AI technology into existing solutions; the other is AI+, which is to take the AI ​​big model as the starting point to lead the innovation and transformation of various industries.

At Intel's Chengdu factory, a high-precision wafer defect detection solution demonstrates the great potential that AI brings to industry. Faced with wafer defects that are too small to be identified by the naked eye during the manufacturing process, developers have created a real-time, high-precision online detection system based on the advanced technology platform of the 12th generation Intel® ^Core ™ ⁱ⁹ processor and A770 graphics card, combined with machine vision and the Intel® ^Distribution of OpenVINO ^™ toolkit - its accuracy is comparable to quickly locating a strand of hair on a football field! Not only has the incidence of defects such as foreign matter and dirt been reduced by 75%, but the overall production process efficiency has also been greatly optimized. At present, for the Chengdu factory, Intel is also exploring how to use large model technologies, such as RAG, to provide multi-dimensional data query and analysis assistance for equipment troubleshooting.

In its long-term industry development, Intel has launched more than 100 industry solutions and combined these solutions with AI capabilities to achieve stronger computing power and functionality.

Intel's goal is to combine enterprises and AI through an open ecosystem and provide enterprises with an "easy button" for deploying AI. Intel's enterprise-level AI solutions combine flexibility, simplicity, and the features required by enterprises. By supporting open standards and fostering an open ecosystem, enterprises can flexibly choose the technology solutions that best suit them, and provide software-defined simplicity, making it easier for enterprises to deploy and manage AI applications.

In AI large-model applications, low latency, high availability, and flexibility are the keys to successful deployment. Intel has a comprehensive product portfolio that lays a solid foundation for edge computing. At the hardware level, Intel's "cool" combination (Intel® ^Core ™ ^processors , Intel® ^Core ™ ^Ultra processors, Intel Sharp ^™ GPUs) can effectively match the performance configuration and system cost requirements of various industries for computing and AI reasoning. At the software level, Intel helps developers accelerate the deployment of edge AI applications by providing tools such as OpenVINO and oneAPI. In addition, through the integration of the Network and Edge Division, Intel has brought together technical support from edge devices, networks, and connection cards to provide partners with fast and comprehensive services to help them quickly deploy and optimize AI solutions based on Intel platforms.

In addition to continuous innovation in software and hardware platforms, Intel has also actively built a broad and close partner network. So far, Intel's Network and Edge Division has established partnerships with more than 500 OEM/ODMs and more than 150 ISVs in China, benefiting more than 2 million developers. Behind these figures is the testimony of the joint efforts and common growth of Intel and its partners.

Intel is committed to bringing the light of AI to every corner of cloud, edge, and personal computing. As AI applications continue to evolve, the deep integration of edge computing and AI will become the golden key to open the door to the Internet of Everything. An era of intelligence and connectivity is accelerating.