With the growth of 5G deployment, operators are entering a development phase; however, how they will leverage 5G to shape their business models remains a question.

Currently, 5G-driven edge AI is widely being implemented across industries, providing telecom operators with new development opportunities for business innovation and transformation.

01

The New Era of Edge AI under 5G

5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) integration has opened a new chapter for telecom operators.

The 5G network has achieved a new connection architecture that can support new services with stringent requirements such as AR/VR and the explosive growth of connected devices, while providing secure industry B2B services through features like network slicing, bringing new service opportunities to industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, finance, retail, and media.

At the same time, the low-latency and high-speed 5G network will enable computing power to be very close to edge devices, including sensors in autonomous vehicles, IoT devices for manufacturing, healthcare devices, smart city video networks, and immersive gaming headsets in the consumer space.

AI is fundamentally changing various industries, improving every aspect from customer experience to logistics and product quality. Businesses can utilize vast amounts of sensors and AI-appropriate data to transition from traditional solutions to breakthrough solutions, thereby increasing revenue and enhancing customer satisfaction.

Moreover, the capability to support edge computing is one of the greatest advantages of 5G, especially in the B2B market. By extending powerful AI computing capabilities to the edge with low-latency and high-speed networks, businesses can not only create real-time AI-driven automated IoT but also reduce the transmission costs of data between generation, acquisition, and usage.

02

The New Momentum Brought by Edge AI

The combination of edge computing and AI is gradually becoming a new means of intelligent transformation, accelerating the implementation of intelligent upgrades in traditional industries, with broad application prospects across various sectors.

For example, in smart cities, 5G-enabled cameras combined with edge AI technology can utilize data streams from sensors on buildings and streetlights to provide services for city managers, such as parking management, enhancing traffic safety, and alleviating congestion.

In smart retail scenarios, retail stores are transforming through AI to provide seamless experiences such as self-service shopping, self-checkout, and VIP special treatment. Additionally, retailers hope to leverage edge AI to help prevent product loss, conduct inventory analysis, and automate restocking.

In manufacturing and industrial environments, AI is now used for non-contact automated visual inspection. Furthermore, to improve production and enhance quality control, robots are learning how to inspect industrial manufacturing environments and make relevant improvement suggestions.

Currently, telecom operators possess high-speed 5G networks close to edge nodes, playing a key role in providing new services and experiences for edge AI.

Industry leaders in telecommunications are leveraging edge AI capabilities to drive the next phase of digitalization, such as Verizon utilizing the NVIDIA Metropolis cloud-based video platform to build smarter and faster AI-powered applications, aiming to collect and analyze multiple video data streams to improve traffic flow, enhance pedestrian safety, and optimize parking.

Ericsson’s dedicated network solutions can achieve 5G radio connections between cloud XR terminal devices and NVIDIA RTX GPUs through its radio communication network and high-performance distributed cloud-native 5G core network.

03

Seizing New Opportunities in Edge AI

5G, AI, and edge have become new platforms for business innovation, and telecom operators need to have advanced infrastructure, software

ecosystems, and technical experts to fully leverage potential innovation opportunities.

NVIDIA has a comprehensive product technology and software partner network to help telecom partners benefit from AI, 5G, and edge nodes.

The NVIDIA EGX platform provides accelerated powerful AI computing performance for edge nodes through an easy-to-deploy cloud-native software stack, a range of GPU-supported and software-optimized servers and devices, and a vast partner ecosystem that offers the EGX platform in their products and services.

For example, Microsoft’s Azure IoT Edge devices will provide NVIDIA EGX edge platform support for customers deploying EGX hardware. Major OEM and ODM manufacturers can provide NVIDIA EGX servers.

VMware securely provides AR and VR applications running on VMware vSphere and streams them using NVIDIA CloudXR to VMware Project VXR client applications, which then run on standalone headset devices. AR/VR applications can run on VMware vSphere in data centers or edge nodes and then stream to users for easy access.

NVIDIA can also provide different application frameworks to help developers create new products in the AI ecosystem, including NVIDIA Metropolis for smart cities, NVIDIA Clara for healthcare, NVIDIA Aerial for telecommunications, NVIDIA Riva for conversational AI, and NVIDIA Isaac for robotics. These frameworks can be used in combination or individually; when used with NVIDIA EGX, they can unlock new possibilities for various edge use cases. Additionally, transfer learning allows teams to fine-tune these pre-trained models according to specific needs.

NVIDIA NGC software hub provides a variety of software optimized, tested, and tuned by NVIDIA for edge nodes, including AI and data science software. Users can also access pre-trained third-party models and Kubernetes-supported Helm Charts through NGC, making it easy to deploy powerful software or build custom solutions.

In summary, NVIDIA continues to empower telecom operators in business innovation in edge AI through a comprehensive product portfolio and rich ecosystem.

In the white papers “Achieving Edge Development through 5G Services”, we explore how mobile operators can develop ecosystems and deploy infrastructure to benefit from providing new edge computing services.

“Reinventing Telecom Services with Edge AI” white paper discusses how telecom operators can leverage edge AI capabilities to drive the next phase of digital transformation.

Scan the QR code below to view the complete content of both white papers.