As the pandemic has shown, edge computing is setting the trend for what’s going to be the preferred technological architecture for the next few decades.

On the forefront of re-envisioning what edge computing can do for the future is Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a powerhouse consumer electronics company.

“Over a year with the COVID pandemic, that’s actually accelerated a lot of the thinking around the edge,” said K.C. Choi (pictured), corporate executive vice president and head of group with the global mobile B2B team at Samsung. “We’ve seen the edge … start be more extreme, in the sense that it’s pushing further and further out beyond what we originally envisioned the edge to be. We’re really re-envisioning what the edge is. ”

Choi spoke with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during IBM Think. They discussed the future of edge computing. (* Disclosure below.)

Creating a new operating system at the edge

While Samsung provides consumer electronics company, it also has a very significant role in the government and financial services sector space with its mobile devices, as well as with its Samsung Knox security platform solution and device management platform.

At the mobile device level, Samsung sees that many people use them for computer class functions, as well as multisensory communication gateways both professionally and personally. As complex functions on devices have become more practical with edge computing — with 5G as well as other fast low-latency communications capabilities like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 6 and ultra-wideband — Samsung believes that it’s possible to make an entirely new operating system within the edge.

“We’re starting to call this the ‘intelligent human edge,'” Choi said. “We think that the applications that we’ll see for this are ones that will make the human operator more productive, safer, certainly more efficient. And we think that this augmentation of that frontline worker is an area that we are … pioneering — just because of again our experience in that mobility space and in that consumer space.”

Samsung is working closely with IBM and Red Hat Inc. to help envision this new operating system and what it’s going to look like: a completely distributed system with the edge as just part of that operating model. Right now, the big tasks are to continue to fortify the actual processing of artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, as well as to equip devices so that they can fully participate as part of a multi-hybrid cloud architecture.

“We think that by broaching this … in conjunction with IBM and Red Hat, this is going to give us the ability to have these device architectures become a full voting member … of that hybrid cloud architecture and of that microservice container architecture that is becoming much more prevalent,” Choi concluded. “So it’s just a very powerful combo, and the cooperation there has been strong. And we continue to look forward to delivering more through that partnership.”

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

Photo: SiliconANGLE