Drive business growth with a new breed of 5G-powered intelligent scenarios at the edge

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Drive business growth with a new breed of 5G-powered intelligent scenarios at the edge

The blog is designed so you can either read it end to end or start with the section most relevant to what you would like to learn:

• Learn about the context and business benefits: Advances in technology are quickly democratizing the use of AI solutions and unlocking new business opportunities built on real-time, mission-critical applications

• Understand the role of 5G and edge computing: These use cases are made possible with a new application architecture powered by 5G and edge computing

• Discover the opportunity and resources for developers: Microsoft is helping developers accelerate innovation and become 5G leaders
• Consider your next step: It’s time to get started with 5G

Advances in technology are quickly democratizing the use of AI solutions and unlocking new business opportunities built on real-time, mission-critical applications.

Today, no one questions the power of the cloud. It’s fueled tremendous innovation and growth over the past 15 years and is the backbone of much of what we do today. But what if we could extend the reach of the cloud further?

The cloud of the future will look very different from the cloud of the last decade. It will expand rapidly and soon be everywhere. A key accelerator of this ubiquitous cloud is 5G and breakthrough AI technologies. 5G is a technological breakthrough, unlocking a new application paradigm. It provides operators, enterprises, and developers with the technology for a new breed of real-time and mission-critical applications that are opening up transformative opportunities across a range of industries.

In industries like transportation, airports, and manufacturing, 5G can bring computing where it’s needed most—closer to the problems that need to be solved:

• In transportation, 5G is powering smart roads that can notify drivers of obstacles in the road and enable new revenue through enhanced services such as managed lanes. 

• For airports, 5G helps improve perimeter security and runway safety and speeds up collection of aircraft data for smarter maintenance. 

• And for manufacturing, 5G is enabling smart factories with better product quality control and security, as well as more flexible production lines. 

These are just a few examples of how 5G can transform industries: the same technologies can easily apply to other industries like entertainment, energy, defense, and even firefighting. Across all industries, 5G enables innovation and transformation that translate to increased safety, new revenue streams, and reduced costs. And ultimately, these use cases enhance your reputation and position you as an industry leader.

To learn more about these use cases, visit our smart roads and airports blogs, where you can access resources with more information about the business benefits and technology. And check back as we release more information about smart factories.

These use cases are made possible with a new application architecture powered by 5G and edge computing 

At the heart of all these use cases are high-performance applications that require higher network capacity and speed, ultra-reliability, and low latency to support mission-critical functions in real time. 5G is powering the future of application architecture, making these modern connected applications possible.

First and foremost, 5G is enabling intelligence at the edge. By leveraging edge computing in combination with 5G, you can build intelligence directly into infrastructure like roads, unlocking critical insights close to the source where they can make a real difference. 5G’s ultra-low latency also offers instant adaptability, allowing applications to adjust in real time to changing conditions and needs. And importantly, 5G powers innovation at scale by allowing you to expand your applications to include more devices spread across broader environments.

5G is key for complex scenarios such as connectivity in large spaces, complicated site coverage, high device density, and connection to moving devices—scenarios that are fundamental to the use cases discussed above.

But 5G can’t do it alone. The other side of the equation is edge computing. The use cases we’ve discussed depend on significant compute power to derive insights from collected data. Moreover, for these use cases, the insights are only valuable if they can be communicated in real time. (For instance, for smart roads, information about obstacles in the road can only save lives if it’s available to drivers instantly.) While all this computing could occur in the cloud, edge computing better supports these use cases, because it brings computation, such as AI video analytics, closer to the end devices that are producing and receiving data, enabling faster insights. 

In addition, industry transformation and edge insights are exponentially accelerated when coupled with AIOps services specifically engineered for 5G workloads. 5G has the capacity to transmit massive amounts of data across thousands of global sites that rely on complex network infrastructure from dozens of different vendors. Naturally, operators and enterprises would benefit from simplifying the complexity of managing these complex network workloads and instead focus on unlocking new business opportunities. 

To learn more about the technology and how to implement use cases, visit our smart roads and airports blogs. These pages include more information and access to a technical design and architecture guide for each use case. (You can also request the technical guides directly from this form.) Then, be sure to check back as we release more about the technical design for smart factories. Also, to learn more about next-gen AI operations for Operators, you can check out the announcement blog written by Microsoft Executive Vice President Jason Zander (available 2/27).

Microsoft is helping developers accelerate innovation and become 5G leaders 

With this technology, forward-thinking developers will be at the forefront of change. At Microsoft, we’re opening the door to the power of 5G to help developers take full advantage of the opportunity. We recognize the challenges developers face when building distributed applications and when forced to build on multiple networks or work within walled gardens that restrict data usage across outside platforms. Microsoft is committed to helping developers create on their own terms with a distributed, open-source environment and to build on a consistent, carrier-agnostic platform. And we are at the forefront of an effort to help standardize APIs, coordinating work across technology and communications providers.

We’ve invested heavily in this platform, and we continue to release new resources to help you get started quickly:

• Speed development: Leverage our MEC App Solution Accelerator (available 2/27), an open-source software application that serves as a foundation of code that you can fork to develop an application that’s specific to your industry and business.
• Accelerate testing and deployment: Our partners are creating solutions to easily start deploying private 5G networks. The Private 5G Starter Kit includes different options of IoT devices, SIM cards, and RAN components that fully integrate with the Azure Private 5G Core, It’s easy to set up and manage, making it a good starting point for bringing your applications to life. 
• Skill up on 5G: Join our 30-day 5G Cloud Skills Challenge, a curated collection of modules where you’ll learn about how to deploy 5G services with Azure and other key technologies. Complete all modules within this challenge, and you will be eligible for a digital completion badge!

It’s time to get started with 5G

5G stands to not only bring tremendous value to your business, but also transform the fabric of society. The moment to get started with 5G is now and we’ve created the tools and resources to make that possible: