Have you heard of Edge AI? It's the concept of having the AI computations processed locally on hardware devices, instead of sending it out to the cloud. This greatly reduces information streaming and energy consumption.

One company gaining visibility in this space is XNOR.ai. From one of their press releases, they speak of a small highly energy-efficient chip:

To demonstrate the viability of Xnor’s AI technology, embedded within the current version is a camera capable of capturing and analyzing video content using state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms. The camera can identify, classify, and code objects within a frame, and then send information to the recipient in near real-time using low data rate wireless communication protocols designed for IoT applications. Importantly, photo and video data never leaves the device, as only insights from the analyzed frames are distributed, resulting in significantly higher security to help guarantee that a user’s privacy is protected.

XNOR.ai is not the only player in the game. Even Microsoft is building products that can be leveraged, with Azure IoT Edge. Stay tuned to learn about a new Santa Cruz company that could possibly become the next Looker in our community.