Edge computing pivotal in Asia Pacific’s digital economy growth

KUCHING: Schneider Electric, the leader in digital transformation of energy management and automation, recently announced findings of Tech Research Asia’s (TRA) survey on edge computing in Asia Pacific.

The recently released report commissioned by Schneider Electric includes insights from 15 Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and 1,100 technology leaders across various industries in Asia Pacific on the current state of IT, edge computing use and intentions and future guidance.

The report also addresses edge computing insights on five industry segments in greater depth.

“A significant number of organisations across Asia Pacific in the next few years will experience the power of edge computing,” TRA director Trevor Clarke said.

“While not everyone will be using the term ‘ edge’, but they will absolutely need edge sites and capabilities in order to succeed.”

The survey was composed of extensive research and in-depth interviews with respondents across various industries.

Respondents were based in countries throughout Asia Pacific namely Australia, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, Philippines, and Taiwan.

“This new report from TRA demonstrates the top reason IT leaders adopted edge computing was to address bandwidth and latency issues,” Schneider Electric’s East Asia and Japan senior vice president Benoit Dubarle said.

“This offers further evidence that there is significant value in deploying edge in today’s business environment where speed and greater efficiency is a competitive advantage.”

In Malaysia, 38 per cent of respondents shared that edge computing is new to them, but they understand the concept while 27 per cent already have multiple edge computing sites deployed and are familiar with this approach.

Those who deployed edge computing said it is more cost effective and allows them to cope with bandwidth and latency issues.

Edge computing has allowed these companies to lower their costs in IT and operations plus an overall improvement in employee experiences.

In terms of type of solutions, the report highlighted that 32 per cent of companies in Malaysia were using their existing data centres to deploy edge computing solutions while 11 per cent will be building new data centres and nine per cent decided to go with colocation facilities.

Among those that have deployed edge computing, they plan to increase the number of sites from five to seven in the next 24 months.

The report also showed that 31 per cent of companies said they prefer to integrate their own single rack while 13 per cent prefer an integrated appliance.

In terms of industries with the highest adoption rate, the higher education sector tops the list with 68 per cent of Asia Pacific organisations surveyed having adopted edge.