How Will the Metaverse & AI Fuse with the Edge?

The evolution of edge computing has come a long way in some respects while still retaining a hold on things developed decades ago. However, the growth of AI, the focus on the metaverse, and smartphones becoming smarter have caused many to feel out of the loop or scratch their heads with what really matters.

Why should these tech areas be a focus for you? No matter your place in the tech journey, it’s important to understand what these things are as they impact you now, whether you realize it or not.

So, the intersection of the metaverse and edge computing, AI, closed loop systems, and what’s on the horizon for the edge in 2022 are all covered in my chat with Leonard Lee. He is the founder of neXt Curve, fellow analyst for the Acceleration Economy, and podcaster for the “Cutting Edge”.

02:58 — Leonard Lee has shared content as part of the Analyst Network, such as covering hybrid clouds, IoT, and the rise of edge cloud. With various terms floating around, Leonard breaks down terminology pertaining to the edge—cloud computing, edge cloud, and fog computing.

03:52 — When referring to cloud computing, Leonard describes it in a traditional sense of where cloud computing started off.

04:26 — Edge computing is essentially distributed computing. He presents it as a counterpoint to what’s happening with endpoint computing, which is stretching the boundaries of where things connect and compute.

06:47 — Fog computing looks at edge computing from an IT networking perspective.

08:12 — Smartphone technology is advancing to have an awareness of nearby devices, creating an ecosystem. Additionally, it has become a technology that’s been adopted into everyday life.

10:11 — Since the Metaverse has been around for a while, what catalytic factors are causing change to advance technologies? What is new and different about the Metaverse that’s getting people excited?

12:15 — While security is fundamental, the value of the Metaverse is going to be generated and delivered through the privacy and trust aspects.

12:55 — How does the edge play into the Metaverse? It’s going to be an essential extension of current infrastructure to support cyber-physical interfaces. Furthermore, the ability for smart technology to recognize other local devices will enrich the Metaverse experience.

14:09 — Metaverses are technically just virtual worlds. However, there’s a variety of Metaverses forming that involves IoT and the instrumenting of things.

15:18 — From a security standpoint, the Metaverse can be viewed as a new threat or attack surface. With GDPR as well as other AI governance and policies, data privacy concerns should be a priority, as it boils down to how much trust you have in your interactions.

16:20 — Closed loop systems keep processes internal and tightly secured. Aaron shares a recent example of an AI closed loop system for edge deployments within a manufacturing environment.

17:41 — Leonard takes a look at the merging of 5G, AI, and emerging edge computing or cloud computing. Together, these technologies would result in closed loop autonomous systems.

19:06 — With edge computing, you can localize the elements of an autonomous system without having to send data to the cloud—bringing decision making closer to where things are actually happening. By doing that, you are able to take advantage of low latencies.

20:18 — Autonomous systems are constantly learning. Inference is applying learning and model training enables it to be a closed loop system.

22:56 — As the interest in edge cloud continues to grow, major cloud service providers continue to move towards the edge. Over this next year, we can expect much thought to go into how to make these things happen and transform with edge cloud.