By Balaji Ramanujam, Distinguished Technologist – Data, AI & Analytics, Infosys
Cloud is valued for its unparalleled scalability, agility, flexibility, and data capabilities. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the most transformative technology of these times, with a growing list of capabilities that already includes automation, real-time data analytics, natural language processing, autonomous decision making, and content generation. So, it’s hardly surprising that when the two combine as Cloud AI (or AI Cloud), they create enormous synergies to deliver additional value to every type of business. We can also call this a perfect alliance – for AI to exceed the business value and scale to enterprise level. Cloud technology serves as the ideal partner for AI, designed to address complex and seemingly unsolvable tasks. Much like the brain instructs the hands and legs, cloud complements AI by providing the necessary support and resources, creating a harmonious and effective synergy.
Perfect pairing
AI and Cloud share a symbiotic relationship: Cloud provides unlimited computing and storage, along with the scalability, flexibility, and resilience required to run AI algorithms. This partnership also facilitates data sharing and insights within an industry context, enhancing collaboration with ecosystem partners.
Let’s consider an example from the utility industry. A vast amount of customer meter data is collected and needs to be shared with regulators, demand response providers, and planners to understand energy consumption patterns and manage forecasting, especially with the growth of EVs. This is achievable only when industry-standard formats for data sharing are established and adhered to at scale. Adopting a common format allows for progressive implementation across regions, which can be efficiently replicated using cloud technology.
AI automates many of the processes involved in Cloud services delivery, such as recognizing patterns, patching infrastructure, scaling capacity, anticipating failures, averting cyberattacks, and performing administrative tasks like tracking services used by customers and billing them. Together as Cloud AI, these technologies empower businesses by enhancing agility, adaptability, insight, and efficiency.
Here is a very short list of top Cloud AI use-cases and their benefits in different industries.
Unleashing the IoT (Internet of Things) to do new and different things
Cloud AI handles the data processing needs of IoT applications, enabling real-time analytics and decision-making, transforming the way enterprises run their business. For instance, insurance companies use data from connected wearable devices, like fitness trackers, to link medical insurance premiums to healthy habits. Cloud AI processes customer information gathered from smartphones and other IoT devices, enabling new business models such as embedded finance and marketplace platforms. In manufacturing, Cloud AI powers Smart Manufacturing and IIoT (Industrial IoT) for predictive maintenance, automated real-time quality control, and autonomous supply chain management. AI, Cloud, and IoT are also foundational technologies for the Metaverse. For example, AI Cloud processes data from IoT devices, fingerprints it, and organizes it into a smart data fabric, enabling realistic visual, auditory, and experiential sensations in Metaverse avatars. This includes using human body information, like movement or gaze, from wearable devices to create realistic virtual personas. Cloud complements AI by providing the necessary data organisation, governance, security, and regulatory compliance capabilities.
Powering smart assistants to enable personal and professional life
Cloud AI-powered Natural Language Processing applications, such as chatbots and smart virtual assistants, have optimised customer service in many industries. Now, they are evolving into other roles to deliver greater value to users – as fitness trainers that guide and motivate people to exercise regularly; as robo-advisors providing personalised investment advice; as vacation planners that fix itineraries, suggest activities based on interest, short-list hotels; and even as cognitive behavioural therapists that treat depression. The AI twin amplifies human potential, while cloud technology provides the perfect pairing to enable virtual and touchless interactions.
Running advanced analytics to yield rich insights and myriad benefits
Complex, data-intensive operations, such as advanced analytics and machine learning, can only run on AI Cloud. Artificial Intelligence solutions gather massive structured and unstructured data from internal and external sources in wide-ranging formats – audio, video, text, image, gesture, temperature, vibration – to forecast trends, predict demand, identify suspicious activities, issue timely alerts, and thereby enable enterprises to respond to change, seize opportunities early, and avert crises. Getting data ready for AI is a crucial yet unresolved area, and cloud technology plays a significant role in modernizing these capabilities. By improving operational cost efficiency, the cloud enables enterprises to ideate, experiment, iterate, prototype, and refine like never before. The most sophisticated innovation activities, such as creating digital twins for aircraft engines to design more efficient models or analyzing patients’ genetic profiles for precision medicine, rely extensively on AI Cloud.
Little risk, big rewards
Every enterprise, in every industry, can derive value from Cloud AI; what’s more, they can do this at their own pace and scale because the pay-as-you-go model allows them to optimise resource utilisation by ramping capacity up or down as required. Public Cloud providers offer AI applications as-a-service, allowing organisations to experiment with AI or expand existing capabilities without upfront capital investment and risk. Examples include Amazon Web Services, which offers a list of AIaaS such as Amazon SageMaker for building, training, and deploying machine learning models, Amazon Rekognition for image and video analysis including object detection and facial recognition, and Amazon Lex and Amazon Polly for various Natural Language Processing capabilities. OpenAI provides services like GPT-3 (Large Language Model and Generative AI), OpenAI Codex (for code generation), and OpenAI DALL-E (for generating visual content). Google Cloud, similar to AWS, offers a range of AI capabilities for subscription. Additionally, Snowflake’s new AI services through Cortex make it truly boundaryless.
These options enable organisations to seamlessly introduce Cloud AI in their chosen areas to avail all its benefits and improve their standing in the market.