The Future of 5G and Edge Innovation — and How Intel is Leading the Charge

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Podcast - Interview Series, host Daniel Newman welcomes Jeni Panhorst, Vice President and General Manager of Network and Edge Platforms Division at Intel for a conversation about the future of 5G and edge innovation.

Technology Companies are Essential

Intel, like most companies in the last few months, has had to pivot to figure out how to deliver what other companies and the world needs right now to fight this pandemic. Whether it’s just dealing with the changes in the way that we work, being able to support the enterprise capacity, or the communications capacity that's required for people as they pivot their work from offices to homes, Intel has been a backbone for technology solutions in infrastructure worldwide. And that’s likely going to continue with the proliferation of 5G networks and edge technology.

The Future of 5G and Edge Innovation

10 years ago, the smartphone revolution created an entirely new ecosystem for innovation of apps and services that now, we couldn't imagine living without. Intel has been involved in that transformation from the beginning, working network operators, telecom equipment manufacturers, hardware manufacturers, software innovators, system integrators, and other partners to build network infrastructure with greater capacity and great flexibility that supported and connected all these devices. This has formed the foundation for the future of 5G and edge innovation.

Today networks have more flexibility and agility to bring computing capacity closer to where data is generated which in turn enables innovation. We have the ability to process data much closer to where it's brought into the overall system which drives down decision latency and drives up a value of insights that are generated.

Jeni shared that Intel has built a huge foundation through virtualization of the network, cloudification of the network, which is going to form the bedrock for the next wave of 5G and edge innovation as well.

Improving the Ability to Innovate

Dan referenced a recent report Futurum conducted in partnership with Intel on hardware to software transformation that determined with software defined virtualization, a lot more can be done in less time — workloads can be scaled, data can move more seamlessly, and we can have real-time applications for things like edge and IoT, in retail, smart cities and government.

But this high degree of virtualization has also given companies the ability to do more and more computing closer to the data. They have the ability to add AI and machine learning enabled services much closer to where those devices exist. More companies are able to innovate new use cases for these technologies.

Jeni and Dan discussed a few different examples of new use cases like factory reconfiguration. There’s an aggregation of insights coming from multiple different factory locations, so companies have the ability now to reconfigure the equipment to deal with changing demand or the need to produce different types of goods like we saw with the PPE shortage. And since companies have found success with this, it will likely accelerate more in the future. 

The Next Generation of 5G Edge

Jeni shared some of the exciting announcements that Intel has made recently like the Intel Xeon processors and the Intel Atom P5900 product — a system on a chip specifically focused on the radio access network. It is the first Intel architecture processor focused on base stations. 

Intel is focused on building next generation 5G base stations based on this product, as well as a set of products across the portfolio, including the FPGA products, the ASIC products and the Intel Ethernet controllers, in order to have a complete solution that delivers on the needs of 5G processing.

Intel’s Commitment to Partnerships

There’s an opportunity now to partner across the industry to ensure that the needs of the next generation of networks are met. Non-real time is not valuable anymore. The closer the data is to the actual moment is when companies will see the biggest return — and that is what intel is committed to providing.

Jeni shared that Intel is heavily dependent upon those partnerships that exist across the entire value chain, whether it's the equipment manufacturers, the software vendors, the system integrators, and the operators and end users who are deploying and using the technology. But not every network developer will have the right expertise that is needed for the new use cases.

In order to foster innovation Intel created an open source software toolkit called OpenNESS. The purpose is to abstract the complexity out of the network to developers of edge applications while providing a place for those next generation cloud-native edge applications to land.

There are a lot of challenges that still need to be addressed in order to ensure the orchestration and automation of the necessary infrastructure in order to deliver all of the promises of next-generation edge computing. But it's definitely something that Intel is invested in, in order to create that next wave of innovation.

This was a fascinating conversation with a dynamic leader in the 5G and edge computing space that should not be missed. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Futurum Tech Podcast so you never miss an episode.