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Comment by btown

21 hours ago

It seems this is focused on on-device computation - as distinct from, say, Cloudflare's definition of the "edge" as a smart CDN with an ability to run arbitrary code and AI models in geographically distributed data centers (https://workers.cloudflare.com/).

Per Microsoft's definition in https://github.com/microsoft/edgeai-for-beginners/blob/main/...:

> EdgeAI represents a paradigm shift in artificial intelligence deployment, bringing AI capabilities directly to edge devices rather than relying solely on cloud-based processing. This approach enables AI models to run locally on devices with limited computational resources, providing real-time inference capabilities without requiring constant internet connectivity.

(This isn't necessarily just Microsoft's definition - https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/edge-computing/what-is-edge... from 2023 defines edge computing as on-device as well, and is cited in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_computing#cite_note-35)

I suppose that the definition "edge is anything except a central data center" is consistent between these two approaches, and there's overlap in needing reliable ways to deploy code to less-trusted/less-centrally-controlled environments... but it certainly muddies the techniques involved.

At this rate of term overloading, the next thing you know we'll be using the word "edgy" to describe teenagers or something...

10 comments

btown

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bigger_cheese  16 hours ago

I work at an industrial plant, we use "edge" to refer to something inside the production network.

As an example the control system network is air-gapped so to use ML for instrument control or similar the model needs to run on some type of "edge" compute device inside the production network all of the inferencing would need to happen locally (i.e. not in the cloud).

pclmulqdq  21 hours ago

Yeah, Cloudflare is in the minority with their definition of "edge."

  • vlovich123  20 hours ago

    No, edge is just poorly defined. Plenty of companies call their servers “edge” because they’re collocated with ISPs. Even ISPs when they talk about edge compute aren’t talking about your laptop but about compute in their colo.

    • notatoad  18 hours ago

      edge just means as close to the user as you can get.

      microsoft's edge is closer to the user than cloudflare's edge or an ISP's edge because microsoft runs your laptop.

      2 replies →

echelon  20 hours ago

In GPU compute land, "edge" means on the consumer device. The latency of delivery is negligible in comparison to the wall clock compute demands, so it doesn't make much sense to park your GPUs near the consumer.

IoT is "edge".

The only place I've seen "edge" used otherwise is in delivery of large files, e.g. ISP-colocated video delivery.

davnicwil  20 hours ago

maybe a decent definition could be compute as close to the user latency-wise as practically possible while having full access to the necessary data.

For certain things this will be able to go as far as the device if you're only ever operating on data the user fully owns, other things will need data centers still but just decentralised and closer to the user via fancier architectures ala the Cloudflare model.