AI is expected to benefit the tower industry in several ways, and towercos are starting to consider these opportunities as they plan for growth. But even those that have invested in data centers may not be getting close enough to the edge to capture many AI workloads.
By 2025, more than half of all data analysis performed by deep neural networks will likely be occurring in an edge system, according to Gartner. The Gartner analysts predict that these edge systems will be located where the data is captured.
If the edge is where the data is, ISPs serving enterprise customers have a significant opportunity. Cable companies Cox Communications and Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) are jockeying for position already. Cox Edge started targeting the retail industry and other verticals more than a year ago, offering hardware and software to support AI applications such as video analytics. Comcast struck a deal last summer to address enterprise edge compute needs by combining its infrastructure with Vapor IO’s Kinetic Grid platform. More recently the partners extended the collaboration to support Vapor IO’s Zero Gap AI.
Zero Gap AI is a service offering that leverages Vapor IO’s existing points of presence in 36 U.S. markets, as well as a partnership with Super Micro Computer, which builds AI servers. In the 18 markets where Vapor IO and Comcast both have infrastructure, the former will put its infrastructure at the cable headends. Vapor IO claims that with a fast fiber connection, the Super Micro servers will handle enterprise AI workloads as effectively as an on-premise server, without the upfront investment.
The Comcast cable headends are valuable real estate, according to Vapor IO’s CMO Matt Trifiro. He said lots of companies want to place infrastructure there in order to be close to end users. Trifiro and the rest of his team are hoping Comcast will refer many of these requests to Vapor IO, and let it host the workloads.
Vapor IO also leases land and fiber from Crown Castle (NYSE; CCI), which is one of the company’s investors. Trifiro said his team initially saw Crown’s tower assets as ideal places for edge infrastructure. “Five years ago when we did the deal with Crown, we thought autonomous cars were going to be driving all this,” Trifiro said of Vapor IO’s edge compute offering. Now enterprise AI workloads seem to be a more likely use case for the micro edge, and Comcast is Vapor IO’s new dance partner.*
But if AI workloads are in fact set to migrate to the network edge, some tower locations are likely to be in demand. Wireless network operators could end up placing servers at tower locations in partnership with public cloud providers, as Cellnex and Vapor IO did in Europe with AWS.
So far, the U.S. has not seen a major deployment of micro edge servers at tower sites. But wireless network operators may become much bigger buyers of edge infrastructure in the years ahead. The GSMA recently surveyed network operators, cloud providers and enterprises about edge infrastructure, and learned that roughly two thirds of network operators expect to “carry the main financial responsibility” for deploying edge infrastructure.
Towercos will probably host some of this edge infrastructure for carriers. If wireless carriers start deploying servers at tower sites to run vRAN, adding storage and compute for AI workloads could make sense.
*More on Comcast’s deal with Vapor IO.
By Martha DeGrasse, Inside Towers Contributing Analyst
This article represents the opinions of veteran telecom industry editor and journalist Martha DeGrasse, an Inside Towers Contributing Analyst with features appearing monthly. DeGrasse owns Network Builder Reports and contributes regularly to several publications. She was formerly a writer and editor with RCR Wireless and a TV business news producer.
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