We unveiled many exciting innovations and service enhancements across the intelligent edge and cloud at Microsoft Ignite, including the continued expansion of Azure Percept and its easy-to-deploy capabilities.
Amid all the product news and informative speaker sessions, you might have missed our edge AI developments. It's not too late to watch these Ignite sessions on-demand to learn about Azure Percept, Azure Video Analyzer, and other Microsoft technologies designed to bring AI and related capabilities to the edge. In case you missed our notable announcements related to edge AI, here are six that I highly recommend learning more about.
1. You can create edge AI applications in minutes with Azure Percept DK
It's never been easier to get started with the Azure Percept development kit. Introduced earlier this year—and now available in more than 16 markets—the Azure Percept development kit makes the process of adding edge AI and computer vision capabilities to solutions easier and accessible for anyone with an idea and a passion to build.
Check out this Microsoft Ignite technical demonstration and discussion to see how you can get started and the step-by-step process for using the hardware development kit and Azure Percept Studio to create, deploy, and train an AI model. Additionally, Microsoft Percept experts answer questions about how the platform, dev kit, and studio can help you build solutions.
2. Coming soon: Bringing Azure Percept to Azure Stack HCI
Microsoft announced that the next area of investment for Azure Percept is to bring Azure Percept to Azure Stack HCI powered by NVIDIA T4 Tensor Core GPU. Combining NVIDIA's powerful computing platform with the edge devices and services offered by Azure will help to further accelerate the development and deployment of advanced, increasingly capable AI solutions.
The joint work between Microsoft Azure and NVIDIA to advance the adoption of AI from high-performance computing in the cloud to the intelligent edge soon will offer new possibilities for users. These include delivering GPU-powered engineering simulations via the cloud and employing AI and deep learning to improve shoppers' in-store experiences.
To see how easy it is to automate your operations with Azure Percept, check out this session where we deploy a computer vision application within a matter of minutes.
3. DataRobot, Neal Analytics, and other partners are harnessing the power of edge AI
Even as Microsoft Azure and its partners strive to bring AI to the edge, too many enterprises still see a gap between the promise and reality of AI solutions. DataRobot is trying to close that gap with the DataRobot AI Cloud. The company's Nick King and Dan Wright explained during an Ignite session how the DataRobot AI cloud can bring together teams and unify operations across the cloud, to the data center, and to the edge. By running the DataRobot AI Cloud platform on Azure, customers can harness the power of AI at the edge with Azure Percept. Soon, they'll also be able to drive real-time collaboration between data scientists and data managers on Teams.
Neal Analytics is another partner using AI at the edge for its innovative solution, as the company has collaborated with Microsoft and NVIDIA to build its Stockview solution powered by Azure Percept on Azure Stack HCI. The solution enables retailers to reduce lost sales and improve customer experiences by leveraging vision AI at the edge for inventory monitoring and out-of-stock detection.
4. You can try Azure Percept on Azure today
In conjunction with the Azure HCI Stack announcement, we're giving developers the chance to try a virtualized Azure Percept appliance integrated with our first-party Spatial Analysis AI service.
This open-source solution will enable you to deploy all the required components to run Azure Percept VMs for Azure HCI Stack with your own Azure subscription without the need for an actual edge device. Additionally, it will allow you to upload your own videos for AI processing on N-series VMs with NVIDIA GPUs in the Azure public cloud. You can request access to try it out today.
5. Azure Video Analyzer launches new features for intelligent video management
In the short time since its debut, Azure Video Analyzer capabilities have grown significantly to meet your customers' needs. During Microsoft Ignite, we announced the availability of new cloud-native video management solutions and the visualization of insights from intelligent video applications. Additionally, we've added video analytics optimization for Windows devices. Watch this Ask the Experts Ignite session with experts from Microsoft, Intel, and Vision Group Inc. as they explain how to streamline the adoption of computer vision solutions.
6. We're also enhancing Azure Video Analyzer for Media files
Computer vision solutions need the power of sophisticated analysis of video in order to achieve their purpose, and Microsoft announced the latest improvements to the Azure Video Analyzer for Media files (AVAM) during Ignite. AVAM provides rich business insights from your video and audio files in a shared timeline and readable format without requiring complicated integrations or machine learning knowledge.
We plan to release additional models and improve the accuracy of detection models to meet our customer feedback. AVAM and Streamland Media's Technology Team also are collaborating to create solutions and drive more innovation in the post-production space.
Deep dive into what's possible with these Microsoft Ignite sessions
As made clear by our announcements and expert sessions during Microsoft Ignite, we continue to expand the solutions made possible by Azure Percept and other edge AI platforms and services. The latest event featured dozens of sessions, including more focused on edge applications, AI, Azure Percept, and edge technology from our partners. We encourage you to explore the on-demand sessions to learn more.
If you want a deep dive into what's new with edge AI and Azure Percept, below is the full list of sessions and announcements:
Azure Percept overview
- Session: The cutting edge of AI: Discover the possibilities with Azure Percept
- Ask the Experts: The cutting edge of AI: Discover the possibilities with Azure Percept (The Blueprint Files)
Azure Percept on Azure Stack HCI
- Session: Automate your operations with edge AI
- Session: Discover how DataRobot and Microsoft deliver more connected AI solutions at scale
- Microsoft and NVIDIA partner to accelerate edge AI deployment
- NVIDIA works with Microsoft to bolster GPU-accelerated edge AI and visualization
- Deliver more connected, intelligent AI solutions at scale with Microsoft and DataRobot AI Cloud
- Reduce lost sales and improve customer experiences with Neal Analytics edge AI solution
Azure Video Analyzer
- Ask the Experts: Solving real-world problems with computer vision at the edge
- Video Analytics across edge and cloud
- Ignite 2021: Scale up with the latest enhancements of Azure Video Analzyer for Media files (AVAM)
