AI, ML, and the IoT will destroy the data center and the cloud (just not in the way you think) (sponsored by Cisco)

We are rapidly hurtling toward the reality of connecting more than a trillion smart and often autonomous devices through a global network we call the internet of things. These devices are being deployed everywhere—on factory floors, on utility poles, on oil rigs, on shipping containers, and as self-driving cars, drones, robots, and even the things you wear or perhaps implant in your body. As a result, artificial intelligence and machine learning tools are naturally moving from the cloud and data centers and into the devices themselves, in order to enable local information processing and instantaneous decision making.

Welcome to the edge-cloud continuum, a world where your data center is wherever your data happens to be. This simple but profound idea will redefine existing technology architectures and create an array of new business models. It will also destroy what we understand the data center or cloud computing to be today. Thus, a self-driving car can be considered a data center with wheels. A delivery drone is a flying data center with rotors. A manufacturing robot inside a factory is a data center with metal arms. Even a runner’s shoes equipped with sensors are data centers with soles and laces. It’s an exciting development that marks the advent of the fourth era of computing, following mainframe, client/server, and mobile/cloud. It’s also a world where change and disruption are no longer a future state; they are the way of life that leads to bigger and better things.

DD Dasgupta explores the exciting development of the edge-cloud continuum, explaining how the roles of data centers and cloud infrastructure are redefined through the mainstream adoption of AI, ML, and IoT technologies, how businesses can adapt their technology strategies and modernize their infrastructures in preparation for these new realities, and how software developers must adapt through new skillsets and even new programming languages necessary to create the dizzying array of connected apps that will come online.

This keynote is sponsored by Cisco.