Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS
Edge AI safeguards data sovereignty
Storing and evaluating data in clouds can lead to serious data protection problems. According to the Cloud Act, for example, US companies must release personal data when requested to by the US authorities—even if the data is stored on foreign servers. But edge AI can help ensure data sovereignty is retained in Europe by evaluating data directly where it is generated instead of in the cloud. This makes edge AI a matter of major strategic importance for Europe.
Edge AI enhances data economy
The Internet, web-enabled devices and data storage are extremely energy-intensive. But the majority of data that gets stored on servers is irrelevant. Edge AI paves the way for considerably lowering this energy consumption. Since only key metadata is sent to a server and sored there, edge AI could help reduce the amount of data sent to and stored on servers to a fraction of what it is
Edge AI shortens latency times
In terms of the speed at which data is processed, cloud-based artificial intelligence is also quickly approaching its limits – especially when it comes to advanced AI applications. Here too, edge AI promises a brighter future, characterized by faster data processing and greatly reduced latency times. In addition, devices will not require the stable network connection that cloud-based system
Edge AI: What’s involved?
Edge AI systems are made up of sensors, computing chips/processors that are used to carry out smart data analysis, and a communication interface that sends the metadata identified to the chosen server. Fraunhofer IIS is a capable contact for any questions relating to edge AI. The institute’s researchers develop, among other things, special neuromorphic hardware on which to perform energy-efficient AI calcula