Crozet, Virginia: According to a new report from CIR, the edge computing processor market is expected to grow from $1.1 billion in 2021 to $2.6 billion in 2025. This market is being propelled by the need to handle latency sensitive traffic from AI devices, autonomous vehicles, Internet of Things online gaming, robotics. AI processors in particular have become prominent in new offerings from chip vendors and OEMs are also offering their own processors as a way to distinguish themselves in the marketplace.
Additional details about the report are available at: http://cirinc.wpenginepowered.com/reports/edge-processor-market-report/
About the report
The main objective of this report is to identify the key trends in processors and related semiconductor devices used in edge computing and networking. It includes both a discussion of otherwise standard processors used in edge systems and the new breed of processors designed specifically for edge use. The edge processors covered in this report include CPUs (central processing units), GPUs and VPUs (graphics and video processors), tensor processors (TPUs) and Server GPUs (aka XPUs).
As part of this task, this report reviews the technical requirements for edge chips and how these are evolving. In addition, the report examines the supply chain for edge processors and the intersection roles between chip makers and OEMs in particular. Several of the key influencers in this space are also profiled illustrating the various strategies that are being deployed in this space.
Some of the applications that this report investigates in the context of edge processors are servers, gateways and routers; Internet-of-Things (IoT); 5G, autonomous vehicles, AI and robotics. Edge processor firms profiled in this report include Amazon/AWS, Apple, Blaize, Cambricon, Deep Vision, Google, Hailo, Intel, Mythic and NVIDIA.
From the Report
- At this early stage of development for edge networking and its applications, upgrades of systems with new types of processors may be needed after a relatively short period of time in a manner reminiscent of the early days of personal computers. New edge processor architectures are quickly being developed that can provide two to three orders of magnitude improvement in performance.
- In terms of adoption of edge computing, IoT, especially Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is expected to be the major driver for edge computing for some years to come. Although neither IoT nor IIoT have quite lived up to their earliest expectations, there are powerful forces behind them ranging from the need for consumer electronics firms to differentiate products in the marketplace (IoT) to the trend towards factories-of-the-future (IIoT).Several processor firms now have processors designed with IoT in mind and these are a form of edge processor. Some of the additions that processors are being designed for in the context of IoT include especially high performance and extended temperature options.
- There is a considerable overlap between “edge processors” and “AI processors.” AI traffic is expected to be one of the most important kinds of traffic driving the deployment of edge networks, so it’s natural that processors for each kind of environment have overlapping futures. An example is the Amazon, AZ1 Neural Edge processor, designed to speed up Alexa’s ability to answer queries and commands by hundreds of milliseconds per response.
- There is not yet much discussion of specific processors for edge computing in the context of autonomous vehicles. Autonomous vehicles will most probably carry an embedded system-on-chip (SoC) running edge software. It is inevitable that edge computing will be necessary for autonomous vehicles. An ideal autonomous car will require latency of as low as 1 ms to be effective and to be able to make split second decisions. In such cases, data transfer not only depends on speed but distance as well. How far data has to travel and how many nodes it has to pass through decide latency.
About CIR
Communications Industry Researchers (CIR) has published hype-free industry analysis for the optical networking and photonics networks for more than 25 years. Our reports provide informed and reasoned market forecasts and industry analysis to a global roster of companies.
Visit http://www.cir-inc.com for a full listing of CIR’s reports and other services.
