Japanese IT infrastructure and services company NTT Data has unveiled an edge AI platform to accelerate IT-OT convergence by bringing AI processing to the edge.

By processing data when and where they are generated and unifying diverse IoT devices, systems and data, this fully managed offering is said to enable real-time decisions, enhanced operational efficiencies and secure AI application deployment across industries to drive Industry 4.0 technologies.

While the spotlight has been on genAI and large language models (LLMs), these technologies are impractical for industries requiring real-time and local decision-making. NTT Data’s edge AI offering addresses this by processing massive data sets on compact computing platforms, using smaller, more efficient machine-learning models to deliver real-time AI insights.

The all-inclusive managed service platform includes all the systems, tools and capabilities required for AI at the edge. It addresses data discovery, collection, integration, computation power, seamless connectivity and AI model management.

The platform, supported by NTT’s consulting data scientists, managed services and global technical resources, addresses the shadow IoT challenge and AI infrastructure requirements. It does this by auto-discovering, unifying and processing data from IoT devices and IT assets across the organisation, simplifying AI deployment and management.

Designed to support industry-specific requirements, the platform leverages lighter, cost-effective AI models, enabling it to run within a small compute box. Edge AI will perform specific tasks, such as supporting safety or operational efficiency, by collecting data from disparate devices across a network environment, enabling instantaneous and secure data processing and analytics.

Manufacturing operations could benefit from improved predictive maintenance by accessing IT-OT data from sensors, machinery, cameras and applications to plan and address failures. In addition, it can monitor and optimise energy consumption in real time, predicting energy spikes and optimising machine usage, reducing costs and CO₂ emissions with renewable energy.

“Our edge AI platform represents a significant leap forward in driving AI at the edge securely and cost-effectively,” said Shahid Ahmed, executive vice president at NTT Data. “By harmonising data from disparate sensors and devices with lightweight AI models, powering all kinds of automation use-cases, NTT Data’s edge AI is pioneering industrial AI adoption as the first fully managed offering, helping organisations modernise.”

NTT Data believes it is poised to capture significant market share through its dedicated IoT consulting and services business, which brings together 1000 industry experts, hundreds of use cases from predictive maintenance, fleet management, connected factories, energy consumption monitoring and sustainability, and has already trained over 500 sales experts globally to accelerate its edge AI go-to-market efforts.

Clients can take advantage of a free 30-day discovery and diagnostic of their IT and OT environment. The software auto-discovers assets with its library of pre-built OT interfaces. After this initial stage, edge AI software generates a diagnostic report inventorying assets and data streams, including identifying security risks and vulnerabilities.

“A key challenge for enterprises is reliably capturing and aggregating operational data securely across a fragmented landscape of devices, platforms and data sources and turning it into actionable insights,” said Alejandro Cadenas, associate vice president at IDC Europe (www.idc.com/eu). “NTT Data’s ultralight edge AI addresses these issues and simplifies the deployment and adoption of a data-driven enterprise strategy, reducing risks and timelines and optimising total cost of ownership and value for the enterprise.”

The managed services (services.global.ntt/en-us/services-and-products/edge-as-a-service) for edge AI offer a unified view and management of devices, sensors and assets.

The platform can transform physical assets into software assets for data-driven insights, regardless of the manufacturer. Operating at the edge, managed services integrate OT assets with IT applications, boosting operational efficiency. Edge AI also provides a view of the firmware version of all connected devices to promote vulnerability patching and overall device security.

“Computing and AI must happen where they create the most value for the enterprise,” said Pablo Tomasi, principal analyst at Omdia (omdia.tech.informa.com). “For many industrial enterprises, this is where the data are generated. By ingesting IT and OT data and leveraging AI models to drive use-case specific results, NTT Data takes another step towards realising the Industry 4.0 vision. Additionally, using task-specific small AI models will help drive AI democratisation by making it is easier for the enterprise to introduce AI where and when is needed, without the need for an extensive overhaul of their whole infrastructure.”

NTT Data (nttdata.com) is a $30bn company serving 75% of the Fortune Global 100. It is part of NTT Group and headquartered in Tokyo.