Edge Innovation Studio

Manufacturing plants process massive amounts of data across their IT and operational systems. Surprisingly, very little of that data is leveraged to improve better real-time decision making. Edge computing can help collect, process and make sense of data to improve preventive maintenance, improve performance and drive new applications for efficiency. 

Perhaps no industry is in more dire need of the value edge computing can deliver than the retail business, which is under intense pressure to compete with e-commerce giants while delivering more personalized shopping experiences for their customers. 

The increasingly complex and competitive environment facing utility companies is forcing utilities to step up their game. Many have already rolled out smart meters to millions of customers. But now how fast can they analyze that data? And what will they do with it? Edge computing can help drive faster processing and lower storage costs.  

Smart cities leverage data intelligence to make informed decisions and develop programs designed to improve the city’s infrastructure and ultimately the quality of life for its citizens. As a result, those efforts encourage economic growth by attracting business and talent to the city. 

As sensors continue to proliferate work sites, oil and gas companies are generating and must make sense of more data to make fast decisions in difficult physical environments. Placing compute closer to the devices generating the data will help lead to a more data-driven business strategy that leads to cost savings and avoids downtime.  

Through edge computing, entertainment companies have a unique opportunity to exponentially enhance user experiences. Entertainment will become ambient, meaning we will see and feel the world through new senses and interact with sources of entertainment in entirely new and wonderful ways. 

Healthcare agencies today are placing greater emphasis on patient experience — new and improved services as well as patient outcomes. Healthcare execs are looking at edge computing to transform the patient experience through more personalization, improving data security and reducing wait times.

Big hotel and restaurant chains must make sense of the same mass amounts of data as other industries, but also must deliver transformational experiences to consumers on the front lines at the same time. Edge computing can help hospitality companies provide great in-room or in-store experiences and cut down on storage and processing costs, too.  

Autonomous vehicles are the proverbial poster children of 5G and edge computing. But many other use cases exist. Think about automating and personalizing everything in your car — from ignition and locks to entertainment and integration with the outside world. Reducing storage costs via edge implementations promises huge cost savings compared with more conventional storage methods. 

The financial services sector is in a period of major transformation. Increasing competition and changing customer behaviors are driving providers of services such as banking, insurance and investments to redefine their business models to optimize for speed and cost, all within the scope of a tightening regulatory landscape. Edge can help reduce in-house IT and data transportation costs and strengthening their compliance posture. 

In recent years, public sector organizations have emerged as a key target for cyber-attack. Sensitive personal information sitting on legacy servers with often lax security controls makes the attacker’s job all too easy. An edge strategy is therefore appealing to decision makers seeking to reinvent how data is managed in order to strengthen security and privacy, as well as to reduce the cost burden of these legacy in-house systems.