Edge computing will become more and more prominent

Global chipmaker Intel is considering various options in India, even when it has partnered with Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel for their upcoming 5G distribution. Prakash Malya, Managing Director of Intel India, spoke Business line about what the world that supports 5G will look like. Excerpts:

How to create 5G computer technology revolution in the world?
You will see the cloud grow much faster. Instead of building their own facilities, businesses will rely on the cloud. Networks will evolve from 4G to 5G – each computing device will have built-in analytics. The world generates so much data that not all of it can sit in a centralized data center and be analyzed. Because the latency (delay between the user’s action and the response of a web application to it) will be too slow for customers.

Therefore, the final calculations will become more pronounced – where the calculations occur when the data is generated. Edge can be anything from retail to a store to a car to a WiFi network. All these evolutions will feed on each other and will be connected and accelerated with each other.

What will India look like, supporting 5G?
India is becoming increasingly digitalized, from digital payments to collapsing industries. The evolution from 4G to 5G means an extremely low latency network and the ability to transform any industry.

The three most famous uses for India will be media and entertainment; corporate level, software-defined comprehensive network solutions; and healthcare. For example, in the case of media and entertainment, if you have very low latency and a marginal network … the amount of content you can serve with very low latency will be huge.

At the enterprise level, you will have networks that are specifically designed for businesses, and a strong and secure WiFi network serving only one company through concepts such as 5G-enabled networking.

This means that in this spectrum you cut the network and build it for a purpose, based on the needs of your businesses, and deploy it in the factory you own, at a wide enterprise level, or deploy it nationwide at all your locations if you have an imprint in several cities.

These are called SD-WAN solutions, which means software-defined broad network solutions. Health systems can be disrupted as Covid’s telemedicine and video diagnostics become increasingly important. 5G connects not only mobile phones but also many other devices to the network. This means that these special connected medical devices can be used more clearly.

What is Intel’s contribution to India’s 5G trip?
Over the last decade, Intel has virtualized the creation of network flexibility, you are exhausting it from commodity software. We started this journey with technologies like XEON about a decade ago, which allowed the virtualization of the 4G network.

This gained momentum in the market. Almost all virtualized networks on the market are based on Intel’s X86 technology. We also create other components for networks such as FPGA and ethernet. In fact, our portfolio of technology elements is among the widest in the industry.

We are also involved with both Airtel and Reliance Jio. At Airtel, we are deeply committed to virtualizing their core network; we are also looking for virtualization of their access network, including open-RAN. At Reliance Jio, we are expanding their 5G radio; we are expanding their end network, cloud network and AI.

What is the customer segment that you watching with these phones?
The customer segment includes consumers, enterprises, SMEs, clients from the state and public sector. For example, a media entertainment network will be run by consumers. Or Intel can create wide-ranging software-driven networks; for example for banks, postal services, OEMs with their dealers, which would allow easier real-time data transfer.

How long do you think it will take for network virtualization or the transition from 4G to 5G?

This is likely to be a long process in which progress does not happen overnight. Even in the rest of the world, 5G is in a very nascent stage. Therefore, 4G network virtualization can take up to a decade, and the transition will also take some time. SDR