Edge computing is the future

Beyond industry’s longstanding reticence to store information off site and high-profile cloud service outages, there are two other reasons supporting this restatement of the importance of edge computing for IoT. One reason is recent venture capitalist calls that edge computing technology firms are the market’s next big investment target. The other is Dell’s release of additional edge computing products built within servers, communication equipment and power&cooling facilities targeted specifically for industrial applications.

Looking first at the venture capitalist interest in edge computing, a recent article in Business Insider highlights comments made by Peter Levine, a partner at venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz. Levine, along with many others, sees edge computing as the next multi-billion-dollar tech market.

The article notes that Levine is “looking to fund entrepreneurs working on edge computing, which he sees as the next enormous change in computing, the real result of the Internet of Things.” Levine sees the move away from a primary focus on cloud computing and toward edge computing taking place because of the sheer number of connected devices in applications ranging from cars, drones and medical equipment to manufacturing robots. “You will never have enough bandwidth and speed on the [cloud] network for that,” Levine said. Paraphrasing Levine’s comments, Business Insider says, “The [edge] devices will handle their own processing and storage, while the cloud will morph into the big strategic brains behind it all. These smart machines [and their edge devices] will send only the most important bits to the cloud. The cloud will analyze, then share what it learned with all of the devices.” There’s plenty of reason to listen to Levine, as he’s not simply an investor chasing the latest tech trend. His career experience ranges from work as an engineer and business leader at Veritas Software, Citrix and XenSource. Business Insider notes that, as a venture capitalist, Levine is known for successful enterprise investments in startups like GitHub, DigitalOcean, Mixpanel, Mesosphere and Udacity. Levine expects that we’ll all start seeing edge computing “come online in a big way within the next five years.”

If you’re interested in hearing more about Levin’s predictions for edge computing, see the video above.

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