AllAnalytics - Jon Martindale - Analytics at the Edge Poised to Grow

Connectivity has improved by leaps and bounds since the dawn of the 21st century, and that has in turn enabled the growth of many industries, analytics included. However, as much as bandwidth and latency may have improved across large distances, there is still no real substitute for the response time of local hardware, and when it comes to analyzing big data, sometimes that's really important. With masses of on board sensors and cameras, there is a ton of data to process at any given moment, helping the passengers avoid obstacles and stay within the bounds of the roadway. Sending that information to the cloud is doable, but in moments of danger where every millisecond counts, it's far better to make those decisions locally. Relying on a remote connection would also require such vehicles to remain in strong coverage areas such as major population centers, where the improved infrastructure of traditional transport networks makes driverless transit less useful than it might in somewhere more remote.