Zeblok Ai-MicroCloud® Platform-as-a-Service certified on Advantech SKY-8000 Edge Servers helps operators, service providers and ISVs scale AI at the edge and shorten time to market for new end-to-end AI solutions
Stony Brook, NY, July 19, 2022 - Advantech and Zeblok Computational today announced their collaboration on a new end-to-end solution based on Zeblok's Ai-MicroCloud® AI platform-as-a-service and Advantech SKY-8000 Edge Servers. The solution streamlines deployment of new edge AI services for operators, service providers and software developers, creating a seamless platform that enables cloud-to-edge AI, with shortened time to market. In addition, the solution has been validated to be deployed on SmartPoint.IO smart kiosk.
Advantech and Zeblok's partnership addresses edge AI scalability and ecosystem challenges by building a consistent infrastructure that extends cloud environments to the edge over high performance and high reliability server platforms that support even the most demanding edge AI use cases. The solution enables an AI-API economy by providing an Ai-AppStore for AI applications, functionality to optimize completed AI/ML models for heterogeneous architectures, using Intel's OpenVINO™ toolkit, and a mechanism to both produce AI inferences as secure Ai-APIs and distribute it to end points rapidly and cost-effectively. It is essentially AI middleware that brings the edge AI ecosystem together to streamline development, testing, training, optimization, and deployment of end-to-end AI solutions.
"The combination of 5G, AI and edge computing is driving the next digital transformation, unlocking limitless business opportunities for operators, service provides and enterprises", said Brian Wilson, Associate Vice President of Sales, Advantech. "We are thrilled to partner with Zeblok to enable a solid foundation where the edge AI ecosystem can innovate faster helping customers thrive in this new AIoT era."
"With 70% of the world's data soon to be created and acted upon outside of traditional data centers, this is a fundamental paradigm shift," said Mouli Narayanan, founder and CEO, Zeblok. "Through our partnership with Advantech we accelerate this transformation with efficient software distribution on reliable hardware platforms at autonomously operated edge data centers to streamline the rollout of next generation low latency and high availability edge AI services."
The end-to-end AI solution leverages Zeblok's Ai-MicroCloud® turnkey AI Platform-as-a-Service. It creates an open cloud-to-edge ecosystem, allowing enterprises to create their own AI Assets, and deploy them as secure Ai-APIs, for distribution from core to edge, including deploying multiple inferencing engines to each edge server, lowering the "cost per insight." By employing a standard certification methodology, the solution seamlessly scales to thousands of edge endpoints.
Zeblok's Ai-MicroCloud® has been certified to be deployed on Advantech SKY-8000 Series Servers. These optimized compute and networking nodes scale from pole-mount, extended operating temperature range configurations all the way up to high-performance platforms that can be deployed as micro data centers at the edge. They balance leading Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor performance with high density PCI Express card payload to integrate the required high-speed networking, time synchronization, and AI acceleration technologies. Its carrier-grade design and advanced platform management provide superior reliability to high availability 5G and Edge AI applications, while streamlining operations. The solution has also been validated to run in SmartPoint.IO kiosks delivering edge computing capabilities to AI inferences for smart cities.
"Beyond corporations, edge AI is transforming cities that now have the opportunity to build more efficient and attractive, greener and safer spaces for residents, tourists and businesses", said Eric Hornsby, CEO, SmartPoint.IO. "The combination of Zeblok's Ai-MicroCloud®, Advantech SKY-8000 Servers and SmartPoint.IO kiosks integrates all software and hardware components to help cities build a curbside data center that unlocks new edge AI opportunities, while fitting into urban residents' lifestyles."
Source: https://www.zeblok.com/