Computer Vision on Edge Vs. Cloud
by Komal Devjani | May 12, 2020 | Computer Vision | 3 minute read
by Komal Devjani | May 12, 2020 | Computer Vision | 3 minute read
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Computer vision (CV) is a subset of artificial intelligence that will have an enormous impact on many industries such as retail, health care, manufacturing, agriculture, and smart cities. When implementing computer vision within a solution, technical and strategic stakeholders need to decide which computing framework to use: edge computing, or cloud computing.
Edge provides several advantages over cloud, including reach, speed and privacy; but most dramatically, a lower operational cost. An edge-based platform like alwaysAI enables easy and affordable deployment of CV on the edge.
In cloud computing, devices send the visual data into the cloud for analysis, which then returns appropriate responses to the device for further action. This can lead to latencies in system response time.
Edge computing, on the other hand, is a form of distributed computing where all computations occur outside of the cloud, or at the “edge” of a centralized server. This function of edge computing is supported by devices that can capture visual data and perform computations locally on the device, closer to the source of the data, making that data immediately actionable. Common examples of edge devices are cameras, drones, robots, sensors or edge development environments like the Raspberry Pi or NVIDIA Jetson.
Today, there are over 4 billion edge devices capable of performing real-time inferencing away from the cloud. This is a huge source of computational capacity, largely untapped with distinct advantages over cloud.
There are three major advantages that edge computing has over cloud computing for CV applications:
And this doesn’t even take into account the significant labor costs associated with developing and deploying a computer vision app. Top-quality CV engineers are in short supply and expensive; going to an outside development firm is equally costly (and keeps the application knowledge outside the hiring firm). All in all, developers need a platform that can easily and affordably help them develop a CV app, deploy it to edge devices, and make changes as needed over time.
The table below shows the difference in cost, for a typical computer vision implementation*, of building and deploying a CV application leveraging an outside consulting firm, developing in-house, or by using the alwaysAI platform:
* A commercial-ready CV deployment on 20 end-points (e.g., cameras) running 24 hours a day
As you can see, using the alwaysAI platform to run a computer vision application on an edge device generates up to 12X in annual cost savings - as well as speed and privacy benefits - over the cloud. This opens up the power of computer vision on the edge to a broad array of developers and companies - we are proud to be part of this movement.
For a detailed look at the enormous cost advantages of edge over cloud, and the alwaysAI platform, download our white paper below.