DoD Needs ‘Smart Edge’ Infrastructure to Back AI Initiatives; Cameron Chehreh Quoted

The Department of Defense needs a “smart edge” computing infrastructure to better leverage the capabilities of artificial intelligence and support warfighters at the tactical edge, C4ISRNET reported Wednesday.

The smart edge architecture allows drones, mobile devices and sensors to transmit data and inform AI-based algorithms in real time.

Cameron Chehreh, federal chief technology officer and vice president at Dell Technologies, cited the need to perform the computing process and data analytics “locally” and “in near real time.”

“If you have semi-autonomous drones in the battlefield, you need to be able to run the algorithm at the edge so that it can take defensive maneuvers immediately if necessary,” Chehreh said.

“The platform has to make some real-time decisions and you cannot afford the latency required to send it out to the cloud and back. It has to be able to do that computing at the edge where it sits,” he added.