Enabling Edge AI - Connected World

This week we saw a big announcement that gets us further on our hybrid cloud journey--one where cloud strategies will also include edge and hybrid investments and companies can extend compute and AI (artificial intelligence) to the edge of the network. Microsoft introduces Azure Percept at its Ignite digital conference this week, which is a platform with added security for creating Azure AI technologies and solutions on the edge. The end-to-end edge AI platform includes hardware accelerators integrated with Azure AI and IoT (Internet of Things) services and pre-built AI models--for vision capabilities including object detection, shelf analytics, vehicle analytics, and audio capabilities like voice control and anomaly detection--and solution management to help go from prototype to production in minutes. This is big news especially as companies and partners look to digital transformation with great fervor. The goal of the Azure Percept platform is to simplify the process of developing, training, and deploying edge AI solutions, making it easier for more customers to take advantage of these kinds of offerings, according to Moe Tanabian, Microsoft vice president and GM of the Azure edge and devices group.