By Mike Knowles, President and CEO
The rapid onset of AI is managing its ways into every facet of our lives. It is unlikely you can go a day, or even hour, without in some way connecting with, using, or hearing about AI. This is especially true in Edge Processing markets where AI is integrated in vehicles and platforms in the environments we work and play in. This includes everything from automobiles, to race cars, airplanes, UAVs, ships, and submarines. As a result of the demand for AI in these areas, we are seeing a strong and growing foundation for the Rugged Edge Processing market in both Commercial and Defense markets, with little signs of slowing. Ultimately delivering value to those whose outcomes are derived from its application and rewarding the businesses and shareholders invested in it.
Rugged Edge Processing Markets
The onset of AI in many circles has been referred to as the 4th Industrial Revolution, given the overall impact it has on our lives and industry, greatly enabled by the Internet of Things (IoT). Even the subset market of AI applications at the Edge is showing a massive and sustainable growth vector. As noted below, we are forecasting these markets to grow on the order of 40% a year from tens of billions to hundreds of billions of dollars. This is an amazing gust of tailwind for market sails.
In the commercial market, the foundation of this tailwind is driven by the massive enhancements in workflows, and the point of interaction. We see this in areas such as autonomous long haul trucking, where AI autonomous tractor trailers are transforming the industry, making it possible to now ship product cross-country in 50% less time, relieving the constraints of the current truck driving shortage. We are able to take advantage of AI capabilities and edge processing in areas such as organic farming, to farm crops more efficiently and with greater health benefits, using lasers to eradicate weeds.
In the defense market, we are enabling our warfighters to act more quickly, with more precision and more certainty. By enabling AI and Edge Processing, we are able to collate massive amounts of sensor data and fuse it into a battlefield picture with AI support, to allow implementation of a decentralized command and control structure in deference to our adversaries' slow and ineffective centralized approach. These AI and Edge Processing capabilities are also allowing us to augment and support our forces with autonomous vehicles in sea, air, and land to balance out the volume advantage of our adversaries.
One of the additional advantages of the sustained adoption and growth of AI and Edge Processing in both the Commercial and Defense markets is the opportunity for technology and data sharing, and the leveraging of investments by participants in both markets. From a hardware and sensor perspective, both markets can benefit from work being done in sensor development, sensor processing, and sensor fusion. An example is seen in the fact that autonomous vehicles in both markets are leveraging sensor suites and processing utilizing Radar, LiDAR, FLIR, and video. Outside of just sensors, the broad adoption of AI and edge processing is creating massive data sets to more rapidly train and employ more capable AI solutions. It is not a stretch to see how sets of data attained by autonomous vehicle operation in commercial and defense environments can be shared to provide greater and faster learning opportunities for AI, to ensure more efficient, controlled, trusted, and safe operation.
The market fundamentals driven by AI and Edge Processing are ensuring tailwinds and full sails for a long journey, and an ocean of possibilities. As commercial and defense markets continue to grow and look to leverage each others’ experience, we will see a more rapid development and implementation of capability, which is sure to benefit users and businesses alike. Sail Away!
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The rugged edge computing landscape is becoming increasingly complex with new generations of technologies, such as the latest AI focused GPUs, releasing annually rather than every 2-3 years. Whether the end application is commercial or defense, rugged edge servers must not only deliver cutting-edge compute performance but also withstand extreme environmental conditions.
When the PCI-SIG formally added support for 675W add-in card devices in the PCI Express Card Electromechanical (CEM) specification in August 2023, NVIDIA’s most powerful CEM GPU, the NVIDIA H100 80GB had a maximum power consumption of 350W. While some devices were starting to push the limits of datacenter thermodynamics – high density systems of many 675W devices seemed like a distant reality. However, with power constraints uncapped and the need for higher performing GPUs skyrocketing, the industry quickly came out with devices taking full advantage of the new specification capability. NVIDIA quickly replaced the H100 80GB with the H100 NVL, increasing power density to 400W. While this small jump was manageable for existing installations, NVIDIA then dove all-in with the H200 NVL released in late 2024 at 600W. The rapid transition from 350W to 600W has put power and cooling technologies in the spotlight in a race to solve this next generation challenge.
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