Edge Computing Key in Pursuit of Industry 4.0

Edge computing can be instrumental in driving Thailand's Industry 4.0 and pushing for the country's digital transformation, according to US-based Stratus Technologies, an edge computing solutions provider.

The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), Industry 4.0, smart cities, smart transport, 5G and innovation in the bank and financial sectors are driving forces for edge computing, the firm indicated.

"Edge computing will play a significant role in fulfilling Thailand's Industry 4.0 ambitions as real-time events and data generated by physical equipment or sensors in the real world can now be processed and analysed in near real-time using localised, low-powered computing resources on the edge of the network," said Lin Hoe Foong, managing director of Stratus Technologies for Asia South.

Having tech infra located on or near the operational environment helps support data collection, analysis and storage, he said.

Edge computing has unique capabilities in remote locations with no local people with IT skills while multiple applications can run at the edge.

According to Mordor Intelligence, the global edge computing market is expected to reach US$4 trillion by 2030 with a compound average growth rate of up to 38.4% from 2021.

The market research firm indicated Asia Pacific is now seeing high regional growth rate for edge computing usage.

According to IT market research firm IDC, 50% of the new IT infrastructure will be deployed at the edge by 2023, up from less than 10% at present, while the number of applications running at the edge will surge by 800%.

Thailand's spending on cloud is expected to grow 28.2% year-on-year in 2022, driven by edge computing and virtualisation as enterprises look to adopt emerging technologies, Mr Foong said, citing tech market research firm Gartner.

According to Mr Foong, Stratus can help businesses gain a competitive advantage depending on their needs, granting access to data from a multitude of sources and applications in real-time and on-demand.

As the Thai economy is becoming engaged in digital transformation, it needs to look beyond the data centre and to the cloud, he said.

Xyvier Goh, regional sales director of Stratus Technologies for North Asean, stressed that edge computing helps address the limitations of the cloud computing model by distributing resources to remote devices running business-critical processes and applications.

"This approach avoids challenges of remoteness and costly centralised data centres," said Mr Goh.

He said Stratus can support Industry 4.0 with an affordable and technically achievable undertaking for Thai businesses regardless of their physical location.

Source: www.bangkokpost.com