AI • IOT • NETWORK EDGE

Christina Cardoza: Hello and welcome to “insight.tech Talk,” formerly known as “IoT Chat,” but with the same high-quality conversations around the Internet of Things, technology trends, and the latest innovations you’ve come to know and love. I’m your host, Christina Cardoza, Editorial Director of insight.tech, and today we’re going to be talking about smart cities and how to make them more sustainable, with industry leaders from Axiomtek. So as always, before we get started, let’s get to know our guests. We have Manny and Jody from Axiomtek. Manny, what can you tell us about yourself: what you do at the company, and the company itself?

Manny Hicaro: Hi, my name is Manny Hicaro, and I’m an Application Engineer Supervisor at Axiomtek. We’re a computer-manufacturing company and a leader in industrial computers and embedded systems. Axiomtek provides customizable, robust solutions for smart cities, manufacturing, and other critical industrial applications.

My role primarily at Axiomtek revolves around enhancing the performance of hardware and software systems for our clients. I work closely with various teams—from sales to product managers and technical support—to ensure that our customizable solutions are perfectly tailored to meet the specific needs of our customers. This involves everything from conducting benchmarks and compatibility tests to working with our customers directly to meet their project goals and requirements.

Our goal at Axiomtek is not just to provide cutting-edge technology, but it’s also to ensure that these technologies are accessible and effective, enabling our clients to achieve their business and sustainability goals more efficiently.

Jody Cheng: Hi. My name is Jody Cheng and I’m the Product Solution Manager at Axiomtek. I’m responsible for IoT and AI edge solutions, and I’ve been with the company for a little bit over seven years now. Axiomtek has been a key player in industrial computer manufacturing for over 30 years, with our expertise in technology and experience serving industrial customers in the markets like automation, energy, medical, transportation, gaming, and retail.

We gained our market know-how, and we’re now ready to bring our values even closer to the application level. We hope through working with our customers and our eco partners we could bring more valuable solutions to the market, help customers solve the problems, and make the changes with all the emerging and exciting technologies.

Christina Cardoza: Great stuff. I’m looking forward to digging into some of these things. Like you said, Jody, you’re looking to help customers and businesses improve their operations or meet some of the challenges that they’re facing. Sustainability has been a major trend among different organizations and different industries. At insight.tech, we’ve been writing about how manufacturing companies, medical companies—how they can all become more sustainable in their operations.

So, smart cities are one of the big factors in being able to make sustainability efforts happen. We focus a lot on inside the factories or inside the business, but there’s a lot outside in the real world that we can be doing to make our efforts more sustainable. I’m curious—want to start the conversation—why or how is sustainability an impact or a goal of smart cities? Why has it become a major trend in these areas?

Jody Cheng: So, there are a few different factors that have been driving this trend. First off, more and more people are becoming aware of climate change and its effects. It has really pushed the cities to be more proactive about reducing their carbon footprints. Since urban areas can contribute a lot to greenhouse gas emissions and with global population become increasingly urbanized, the pressure is on the cities to tackle these environmental issues.

So, basically, sustainability is the goal. It’s about keeping economic growth on track while minimizing environmental impact. And, I share this information—according to a study done by the World Bank, 56% of the world population lives in the cities, which is about 4.4 billion people. So, by 2050 it’s expected that seven out of ten people will be city dwellers.

So that’s why cities that focus on adopting practices to combat climate change, improve air quality will boost the overall quality of life for their residents. At Axiomtek, we’re really excited to see this trend towards sustainability growing. It’s all about making sure that our environment stays healthy and thrives in the long run.

Christina Cardoza: Absolutely. And when you consider the amount of people you mentioned living in cities, it becomes that much more of a priority. I just had a conversation around buildings, making buildings smart—they give off a lot of the pollution, about 40% of carbon emissions—and how we can make those more sustainable.

But when it comes to a city, it’s all these different things and all these different people that are stakeholders or really can make a change in making it more sustainable in addition to the buildings. I’m curious, what are some solutions or technologies that can help smart cities become more sustainable?

Jody Cheng: There are a lot of solutions that we can talk about here. Sustainable, smart cities are all about planning technology with environmental responsibility for a thriving urban future. It’s about creating cities that work smarter, not just harder, for both people and the planet.

This is achieved by using smart grid, IoT, data collection—along with innovations in buildings, transportation, and maybe resource management. Smart cities rely on Internet of Things—think of a network of sensors around the city tracking air quality, water usage, and traffic. This data helps city managers optimize resources and reduce waste.

For example, smart grids can balance energy demands, cutting down on fossil fuels. Let’s say traffic lights can adjust based on real-time traffic, easing congestion and lowering emissions. And that’s just the start. The possibilities are endless. Edge computing and AI make things even better by processing data right where it’s collected. This means, like, quicker decisions and more efficient operations, making smart cities even smarter.

Let’s talk about smart grid first. Smart grids are the foundation for sustainable, smart cities, with advanced electric grid using monitoring tools and efficiently managing electricity use. So, this will help integrate renewable resources, like solar, and reduce the reliance on the usage of fossil fuels.

Another big driver of sustainability is smart buildings and homes. You talked about that earlier. These places have energy-efficient systems like automated lighting that adjust based on the occupancy, or the HVAC systems that optimize heating and cooling. Plus, the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-certified buildings which follow strict sustainability standards are becoming more common.

Another topic we can talk about is transportation. Transportation is also another key focus for cities aiming to reduce emissions. Cities are developing EV-charging infrastructure and promoting public transit systems with passenger tracking and traffic optimization. These innovations help cut emissions, ease congestion, and offer eco-friendly travel options for residents.

So, last, I like to mention resource management. Resource management can be one of the most crucial aspects of sustainability. Managing resources like water and waste is key to sustainability. Automated waste collection and energy-to-waste conversion help reduce landfill use and promote recycling. Also for water: smart integration and advanced treatment processes optimize usage and cut down waste. These are some of the solutions or areas I personally see that will contribute to our society’s sustainability going forward.

Christina Cardoza: I love all those examples. Like I mentioned, we talked about buildings, and that’s just one area, but when you look at it from a smart city perspective, it really is an end-to-end solution that you guys are providing to really make these efforts done in conjunction of one another and not these improvements and enhancements happening in silos.

One thing you mentioned was, of course, AI and edge computing. That’s going to be extremely important, especially to all this data collection and all the benchmarking that you were talking about in the beginning, Manny. I’m curious, obviously AI—you’re getting all of this data, and AI is going to be important to be making sense, to be making these predictions, to be measuring it up against these benchmarks. And edge computing is making sure that the data is happening in real time so that we can make quick, informed decisions. From your perspective, what is the role of AI and edge computing contributing to the sustainable solutions beyond some of the benefits that I just mentioned?

Jody Cheng: The advancement of AI and edge computing has elevated these sustainable solutions to a level that we haven’t seen before, with processes becoming more efficient, faster, and autonomous. Both AI and edge computing are transformative technologies that, when they’re combined, significantly enhance the sustainability of the smart cities. So maybe we can break this down and discuss each part of the edge computing and AI, and how they combine into this great form of computing.

So, in general terms, AI has the ability to analyze vast amounts of data collected from various sensors and can build off established algorithms. Through these advanced algorithms and data analysis, AI holds the ability to enable energy-efficiency improvements in all city environments, from buildings and factories to transportation systems and more. This can all happen simultaneously while managing renewable energy integration into the grid.

On the other hand, edge computing is a distributed system that brings computation-data storage closer to where it’s generated, improving response times and saving bandwidth. So instead of relying solely on centralized data processing—like we do in cloud computing—edge computing process data locally onto devices such as IoT sensors, routers, or gateways. This proximity to the data source allows for quick decision-making and reduces the need for data transmission to centralized servers—like enhancing the responsiveness within the system while also cutting down on energy usage, consumption, and resource associated with transferring large amount of data.

So, when combined, edge computing with AI brings together real-time data analysis and decision-making at the network’s edge, minimizing latency and bandwidth constraints. This decentralized approach enhances system responsiveness, reduces network congestion, and cuts costs. For city operations this can optimize everything from traffic flow to energy-consumption patterns, reducing energy waste and increasing overall efficiency.

Smart cities, like AI-driven insights, support proactive and adaptive urban planning. Real-time data on metrics like air quality, traffic congestion, or waste management and energy usage allows city managers to make informed decisions and optimize resource utilization and minimize the environmental impact. This synergy between AI and edge computing helps on traffic engineering and more sustainable urban initiatives, ultimately improving quality of life while addressing environmental challenges.

Christina Cardoza: Great. So, I keep coming back to this building example, just because it’s easier to visualize how you can make improvements in a building. You mentioned the lighting, the occupancy—there’s different infrastructure already involved in there. When we’re looking at an entire city and all of these different things you can be doing from the building, from the transportation, from all of these different areas, I’m curious what type of investment and infrastructure is necessary to make sustainable smart cities possible?

Manny Hicaro: Creating smart cities isn’t cheap. It does need a big investment in advanced hardware, and it also requires a strong network infrastructure. We’re talking about setting up powerful GPU-based edge computers that can handle a variety of processors. These machines are essential for real-time data processing and AI tasks.

We also need to integrate IoT sensors and cameras throughout the city. These devices are key for real-time monitoring and data collection. They gather information on things like traffic, public safety, and environmental conditions—and then process it locally to enable quick decision-making. On top of that, smart grids and intelligent transportation systems help optimize energy distribution and traffic flow, making the city more efficient overall.

But it’s not just about the devices. Having a solid network infrastructure is crucial too. This ensures secure and high-speed data transmission across the city systems. A network of edge data centers strategically placed around the city can boost the efficiency and reliability of this edge computing. These centers reduce latency and speed up the processing of real-time information, plus they provide redundancy, support the quick deployment of new applications, and improve disaster-recovery capabilities while contributing to sustainability goals.

However, implementing these technologies in existing urban infrastructures isn’t easy. It comes with a high initial cost and the challenge of ensuring compatibility with older legacy systems. This is where collaboration between the public and private sectors become crucial. These partnerships help align technology deployments and public policies, making sure that the solutions are sustainable and effective in the long run.

Christina Cardoza: And then in addition to these types of partnerships, I’m sure there’s technology partnerships going on behind the scenes as well. But before we get there, I want to talk about some use cases or customer examples that you guys may have. We’ve been talking a lot about the technology, the solutions, what can be done, what are some areas that we can be implementing this technology. But to really paint a picture for our listeners, do you have any customer examples or use cases that you can share with us that highlight the effectiveness of the technology we’ve been talking about?

Manny Hicaro: Absolutely. One of our standout projects that we were involved in involves an AI-enabled recycling bin that pretty much transformed waste management in several urban areas so far. These bins use advanced AI algorithms to efficiently sort through the recyclable materials, which significantly cuts down the frequency of waste collection. With the help of a high-performance processing system, these bins can quickly and accurately execute tasks, making recycling programs much more effective.

Here’s how it works. People can easily deposit recyclable waste, like plastic bottles and cans, into these bins. The system then autonomously sorts through those materials, ensuring that they are correctly categorized for optimal resource recovery. This boosts sorting, accuracy, and overall recycling rates. Plus, the system maximizes the physical storage space by automatically compressing these papers and bottles, which reduces the need for frequent cleanup visits, and improves the labor and efficiency in waste collection so far.

These AI-powered recycling bins also take a proactive approach to maintenance. They can notify cleaners through remote management when they need attention. The sensors continuously monitor the fill levels in real time and send notifications when the waste is nearly full. This pretty much streamlines operations and eliminates the need for constant manual monitoring. This results in improved accuracy, higher recycling rates, and greater operational efficiency.

Additionally, cities like Baltimore are making strides with similar initiatives. They’re investing $15 million to deploy 4,000 smart trash receptables across the city. These solar-powered, Wi-Fi-enabled trash cans can work much like our solution, transmitting information about the fill levels to optimize collection schedules and enhance overall efficiency.

Christina Cardoza: I love that example. Anytime we can automate and take manual tasks out of the equation, that makes it a lot more accurate. Recycling and being sustainable is a priority for me as a citizen. But when I come to a recycling can and there’s paper, plastic, metal, and there’s different pictures of what constitutes as waste and not waste, it gets confusing, and sometimes I’m worried that I put it in the wrong bin. So, it’s great that these recycling bins can do the work for you so that we can start making these efforts and be more sustainable, be more accurate, and not have to worry about relying on error-prone processes. So that’s awesome to hear.

I want to come back to, like I mentioned, this probably takes a lot of technology partnerships to do this. We mentioned powerful processors, edge computing. I should mention insight.tech and the podcast as a whole, we are sponsored by Intel. But we have had this theme going on, “better together,” that it really takes teamwork from different organizations, different partners, different experts to leverage all this technology and really create a powerful, impactful solution. I’m curious what the value of your partnership with Intel and its technology has been to enable some of the use cases you just talked about.

Manny Hicaro: Oh, yeah, definitely. Our partnership with Intel has been key to the success of our smart city solutions. Intel’s processors provide the high-performance computing power needed to handle these complex AI and data-processing tasks. And over time Intel has fine-tuned these processors to boost efficiency and performance, making sure that they meet the tough demands of city applications.

Here at Axiomtek, innovation is at the heart of our collaboration, and Intel’s dedication to advancing technologies aligns perfectly with our goals. This allows us to use cutting-edge technologies to develop robust and reliable solutions. Also, this partnership has helped us stay ahead in the AI and edge-computing advancements.

Another benefit of it is scalability. There’s a wide range of products that Intel lets us customize our solutions for various use cases, ensuring our systems can scale efficiently to meet the growing demands of urban areas. Whether it’s expanding the network of IoT sensors or adding more advanced AI capabilities, Intel’s technology supports the seamless scaling of our solutions. Overall, Intel’s technology and support have empowered us to develop advanced smart city solutions and enhanced our ability to implement them effectively. This partnership keeps our systems at the cutting edge of technology, and it also provides reliable and scalable solutions for cities around the world.

Christina Cardoza: Great. And of course, sustainability is only one aspect of smart cities. So, in the beginning, in your backgrounds, you both mentioned different areas that you are focused on at the company. I’m curious, how else do you see edge AI being implemented across smart cities and benefiting this area?

Manny Hicaro: We talked about how edge AI can help cities become more sustainable by integrating it into foundations of a city—like smart energy grid, resource management, transportation, and smart buildings. As edge AI technology continues to advance and become more effective, it can also expand into areas beyond sustainability. The possibilities are only limited by our imagination.

In transportation, while EV charging and promoting public transportation supports sustainability, edge AI can offer many other applications. For instance, real-time sensors can optimize public parking, and self-driving can continuously improve, driving new data. In the future autonomous vehicles might even coordinate with each other with traffic infrastructure to improve efficiency and safety. We can also see how automated public transportation could optimize routes and manage passenger flow. Edge AI can enhance traffic management by enabling real-time traffic optimization, taking into account multiple factors like nearby streets and intersections. With more cameras in place, it allows for immediate accident detection and traffic rerouting.

Moreover, AI-powered surveillance can boost public safety by detecting unusual activity and predicting incidents like floods or fires. Infrastructure monitoring can detect anomalies for prompt maintenance, including road conditions and utility lines. This kind of monitoring can even extend to resources like water and air quality. Edge AI’s integration into smart cities shows a lot of promise, and it can enhance daily life for virtual assistants that automate routines and interact with smart devices. These assistants with AI advancements can adapt routines based on user patterns, making life more convenient and efficient in the long run.

Christina Cardoza: Well, I can’t wait to see what else Axiomtek does in this space, and I invite all of our listeners to follow along with them, contact the company, visit their website to see how you can be a part of some of these innovations happening, as well as follow along on insight.tech as we cover partners like Axiomtek and others and what they’re doing in these spaces.

Before we go, I just want to throw it back to you guys if there’s any final thoughts or key takeaways that you want to leave our listeners with today.

Jody Cheng: Yeah. We shared various technology perspectives here, and now maybe we can shift our focus back to humanity. In the past, many people have traditionally viewed our economic and environmental concerns as conflicting interests. However, we anticipate that the introduction of edge AI will significantly alter this dynamic for urban cities.

In the past, maintaining sustainable operations often demanded a significant human resource for management and close oversight. We saw examples of this in recycling and resource-management operations, where many of them that incorporate edge AI now operate more efficiently and autonomously, reducing the need for human intervention.

With edge AI advancement, these activities will become more cost-effective, achievable, or more efficient. We’re really excited to contribute to the sustainable journey by offering improved methods to fight the greenhouse effect, reduce carbon emissions in the long term, and maybe leave a cleaner environment and brighter future for the next generation.

Christina Cardoza: Absolutely, and totally agree with you there. The roles and the responsibilities and our impact in this is going to significantly change, especially when you think about the use case and the recycling bin that you provided. It is no longer on the human or the manual effort to make some of this happen. It’s just going to become second nature, and we’re going to start being able to make these efforts even if we don’t know we’re making them.

It’s great to see companies like Axiomtek making all of these different innovations and advancements in this space. I want to thank you both again for joining the podcast, as well as our listeners for tuning in. Until next time, this has been “insight.tech Talk.”

The preceding transcript is provided to ensure accessibility and is intended to accurately capture an informal conversation. The transcript may contain improper uses of trademarked terms and as such should not be used for any other purposes. For more information, please see the Intel^® trademark information.

This transcript was edited by Erin Noble, copy editor.