5G + AI + IoT at the edge

New trends are pushing the Internet of Things (IoT) to new levels of adoption, accelerating the creation of smart cities in the Asia Pacific region (APAC). Three forces in particular are coming together to change urban infrastructure.

Source: Niometrics. Rezende.

“5G mobile networks are one of them. They serve more loT devices, with more data throughput and quicker responses than current 4G deployments. And with that, they pave the way for enterprises, in particular, to amplify intelligent automation efforts.

“In APAC, Niometrics is witnessing a surge in interest from telcos to offer their enterprise clients the ability to monitor pools of intelligent, connected appliances. This time round, it seems business will beat consumers in a new tech adoption race," said Luis Rezende, VP of network analytics company Niometrics.

"The continued proliferation of IoT devices will make edge computing an essential component of the enterprises’ infrastructure in 2020. To power these systems, 5G will become a bedrock for organisations looking to speed up their IT operations,” agreed Rohit Ghai, President, RSA.

Source: Rackspace. Bhargava.

Rackspace also commented on the 5G with IoT trend. “We anticipate an increase in the number of IoT and edge computing deployments in some parts of APAC in 2020, driven by the commercial availability of 5G and cloud adoption. (As of December 2019), South Korea and China have rolled out 5G networks, while Australia, Japan, and Singapore plans to do so (in 2020),” said Sandeep Bhargava, MD of Asia Pacific/Japan, Rackspace.

“The benefits of deploying IoT, edge, 5G and cloud technologies are exemplified in the case of smart cities. With edge computing, a connected traffic light can analyse the data collected by sensors to determine real-time traffic flow. It can then quickly transmit that information to other traffic lights and autonomous cars in the vicinity via 5G and cloud to coordinate the flow of traffic – such as changing the duration of the green light or suggesting a different route to the car – to ease congestion.”

Source: Tata Communications.
Sherwood. 

5G networks will also make it possible for powerful artificial intelligence (AI) systems to control connected devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) as if they were on the device itself – an augmented type of edge computing - leading to applications that were not possible before, making AI the third trend worth watching.

"5G’s enhanced speed and flexible connectivity will enterprises help fully realise a mobile-first world and create entirely new approaches by allowing businesses to put more intelligence into edge and cloud computing and maybe even cut the cables," agreed Tim Sherwood, VP, Business Development, Mobility & IoT, Tata Communications.

Atish Gude, NetApp Chief Strategy Officer said, “The advent of 5G is what AI-driven IoT has been waiting for. 2020 will see many players in the technology industry and business community invest in building edge-computing environments to support the reality of AI-driven IoT. These environments will make possible new use cases that rely on intelligent, instantaneous and autonomous decision-making, with low latency, high-bandwidth capabilities bringing us to a world where the Internet will work on your behalf – without even having to ask.”

There's lots to change

Source: Cisco. Dodds.

Existing infrastructure will have to change to accommodate these new trends, however. Courtney Dodds, MD, Data Center & Cloud, APJC at Cisco explained, “IDC estimates that by 2023, the overall number of 'connected' IoT devices worldwide will increase to over 35.2 billion, and by 2025, the number will be grow by 20% to nearly 42 billion. The amount of data produced by connected things will produce vast quantities of data that will need to be collected (via a network) and analysed (on some type of compute).

“This data, coupled with AI and machine learning will unlock edge data making the data centre the 'glue' between the significant amount of data that will still need to be collected, stored, managed, and analysed. Which is why edge infrastructure is expected to grow by 80% by 2023.”

Source: NetApp.
Gude.

Gude's take is similar: “The AI-driven IoT revolution, however, will be dependent on a massive prioritisation of edge computing, further disrupting IT infrastructures and data management priorities. As edge devices move beyond home devices (like connected thermostats and speakers) and become more far-reaching (such as connected solar farms), more data centres will be placed at the edge, and software such as AIOps will be necessary to help monitor complex environments across edge-to-core-to-cloud.” AIOps refers to AI for IT.

Ravi Rajendran, VP and MD, Asia South Region, Veritas, calls 2020 the year of AIOps adoption, and links the trend to digital users, an umbrella term for machine agents, containerised applications, process-oriented analytics, IoT devices and API-driven infrastructure.

“AIOps and API automation hold the promise to abstract complexity and provide significant new levels of autonomous processes,” he said.

Source: Veritas. Rajendran.

“Looking ahead to 2020, collecting data from various systems, tools and devices and the application of analytics, AI and machine learning will gain speed, simplifying the adoption of digital users, enhancing IT operations and information management with capabilities that will include:

- Automatic detection and self-directed, real-time action on events and issues

- Automated workload and data analysis that drives resiliency orchestration

- API-enabled provisioning, management, protection and recovery

- Proactive data classification and action spotlighting potential risks and threats.”

New Radio, new considerations

Users will want a front-end and a back-end which are easy to use. “The proliferation of edge computing and IoT devices means the pure volume of data and the critical nature of the network will drive demand for innovations to reduce operational complexity through easy automation, improve visibility to identify and mitigate issues before they happen, and help businesses scale to keep up with experience expectations,” said Steve Wood, VP, Asia Pacific Japan, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company.

Chuah Seng Heng, VP and GM, Asia Pacific and Japan, Motorola Solutions stressed that business continuity must also be factored in for the intelligent edge. “We also need to consider what happens when 5G networks become congested or unavailable, for example, when a major public incident occurs,” he said.

Source: SensorFlow.  Ranganathan.

Sai Ranganathan, CEO, SensorFlow, also said that 2020 will see even more IoT adoption, catalysed by the advent of 5G. He added that while 2019 was the year of awareness and technological adoption of smart technologies and IoT, 2020 will also be the year of skills development and educating the public to operate and run them, at least for Singapore.

“The Singapore government’s plan to turn 80% of the country’s buildings green by 2030 requires a strong task force to manage this infrastructural upgrade. As a precursor to this, SkillsFuture Singapore and the Infocomm Media Development Authority have already launched a programme to redesign jobs and skills to support the development of ‘smart estates’ in Singapore,” he said.

“Singaporeans have always been the early adopters of new technologies and with IoT and smart buildings, this trend is likely to continue in 2020.”

Think about risks

Security could be a headache, however, to the point that Ghai of RSA predicted that a cyber incident at the edge will appear in 2020. “A security incident in the new year will serve as the wakeup call for organisations leaning into edge computing and will remind them that threat visibility is essential as their attack surface grows and the number of endpoints in their network multiplies,” he said.

"Expect the enterprise to invest more in tools that enable visibility across IoT devices and allows for a monitored and controlled edge gateway for devices."

Source: Synopsys. Zubair.

"In 2020, we know that attackers will continue to exploit all applications, endpoints, and networks they possibly can. This includes, but isn’t limited to, web and mobile apps (internal or external), IoT devices in smart homes, and even the 5G network as it is being rolled out," Asma Zubair, Senior Manager, IAST Product Management, Synopsys Software Integrity Group concurred.

“Geopolitical landscapes and the increased sophistication of cyberthreats are introducing a new era of cyber physical attacks, where threats launched in the digital realm can have real-world ramifications on physical infrastructure. Smart city sensors greatly expand the attack surface, giving threat actors more opportunities to launch new threats – and as we roll out 5G this will only be exacerbated,” warned Sanjay Aurora, MD of Darktrace in Asia Pacific & Japan.

Source: CyberArk. Lazarovitz.

Lavi Lazarovitz, Group Research Manager, CyberArk named drones as a key IoT device category to protect. “In 2020 we could start seeing attackers focus more on what drones know and how that information can be exploited for intelligence gathering, corporate espionage and more. While it’s true that drones have the potential to do physical damage, the longer-term opportunity for attackers is to use drones as another pathway to steal – and manipulate – sensitive information,” he said.

“Goldman Sachs recently predicted that businesses will spend more than US$17 billion in the next five years on drone functionality. With an emphasis on innovation and development, these devices need to be treated as any other IoT device, with software that gathers and stores sensitive information that needs to be protected.

“Organisations need to consider who has the ability to control the drone’s activities, what information the drone is storing, how access to that information is being managed and monitored, and ultimately who owns responsibility for securing it. These questions will need to be addressed by the creation of a security framework that can help mitigate emerging security risks and potential regulatory and compliance challenges.”

Source: RSA. Lee.

Improving security

"Entering the new year, the advent of 5G and Internet of Things (IoT) technology will only continue to increase the surface area for attacks and vulnerabilities,” agreed George Lee, VP, Asia Pacific & Japan at RSA.

Lee suggested knowledge-sharing followed by training as one way to alleviate the risks. “To remain resilient in our hyperconnected world, private-public partnerships must continue to be strengthened to facilitate knowledge-sharing that trains the next generation of workforce to stay one step ahead of threat actors.

"At the same time, education to end-users about practicing proper cyber hygiene will enable a more holistic defense against digital risk," he said.

Source: Cloudera. Micallef.

Mark Micallef, VP of Asia Pacific and Japan, Cloudera, has another solution in the context of smart cities.

“With data becoming more accessible and valuable, there is also a need for companies collecting and using that data to secure it. For this, we believe that as the smart city ecosystem continues to develop, data will be encapsulated with its own secure, intelligent model that dictates where and how it can be used,” he said.