When we talk about intelligent applications at the edge of computing networks, often we are referring to the tasks we perform everyday on our smartphones. Our handhelds already stream movies, recognize faces and act on voice commands, to name a few of their futuristic capabilities. The combination of 5G networking and stronger artificial-intelligence computing will send a new wave of intelligent mobile applications ashore, according to Keith Kressin (pictured, right), senior vice president at Qualcomm Inc.

“That together is going to create a pretty powerful platform for applications for the future,” Kressin said.

Every decade, a shift in networking and accompanying compute upgrades change the paradigm, he said. This time, it will be 5G networking (which is already rolling out) and new computing structures built for artificial intelligence workloads. To run these advanced new apps, smartphones will need to get smarter with powerful new storage and memory hardware, he said.

Kressin and Raj Talluri (pictured, left), senior vice president and general manager of the Mobile business unit at Micron Technology Inc., spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and David Floyer (@dfloyer), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during Micron Insight 2018 in San Francisco. They discussed how 5G and AI are reshaping the intelligent edge. (* Disclosure below.)

Overworked cloud gets a little help from the edge

Smarter edge devices will not butt the cloud out of the picture. On the contrary, “the more you do at the edge, the more it drives the need for the cloud,” Talluri said. So as not to drown the cloud with a fire hose of data, edge devices should condense data into information before sending it back to the cloud. Then the cloud can operate on it more efficiently, Kressin said.

For mobile devices to perform machine-learning and artificial-intelligence computing on the spot, they will need upgraded hardware — like high-density memory coupled tightly with the processor. “These are complex neural networks that need a lot of data very close to the processor,” Talluri said.

“Any device that has a computing element also is going to have a connectivity element also is going to have an AI element, so it’s going to be a much more connected world.”

Micron recently announced a $100 million AI investment fund for startups.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Micron Insight 2018. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Micron Insight event. Neither Micron Technology Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE