NTT and Red Hat have demonstrated a real-time, AI-powered data analysis platform that significantly reduces latency and power consumption while enabling scaling that overcomes processing bottlenecks. The data center platform, developed in collaboration with NVIDIA and Fujitsu, is built on NTT’s All-Photonics Network (a component of the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network, IOWN, initiative), NTT’s IOWN Data Centric Infrastructure (DCI) and Red Hat’s OpenShift software.
IOWN Solution Components:
- Utilizes the IOWN All-Photonics Network (APN) and data pipeline acceleration technologies.
- Part of the IOWN Data-Centric Infrastructure (DCI).
Accelerated Data Pipeline for AI:
- Adopts Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) over APN for efficient data collection and processing at the edge.
- Employs Red Hat OpenShift for container orchestration, enhancing workload flexibility across distributed data centers.
Benefits:
- Demonstrated reduction in power consumption.
- Maintains lower latency for real-time AI analysis at the edge.
Proof of Concept (PoC) Details:
- Real-time AI analysis platform tested with Yokosuka City (sensor location) and Musashino City (remote data center), both connected via APN.
- Achieved a 60% reduction in latency for aggregating sensor data for AI analysis compared to traditional methods.
- Reduced power consumption by 40% per camera at the edge for AI analysis, compared to conventional technology.
- Allows GPU scaling to support more cameras without CPU limitations.
Trial Calculation Results:
- With 1,000 cameras, potential for a further 60% reduction in power consumption.
This PoC uses NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs and NVIDIA ConnectX-6 NICs for AI inference.
This solution helps set the stage for intelligent AI-enabled technologies that will help businesses sustainably scale. With this solution, organizations can benefit from:
- Reduced overhead associated with collecting large amounts of data;
- Enhanced data collection that can be shared between metropolitan areas and remote data centers for quicker AI analysis;
- The ability to utilize locally available and potentially renewable energy, such as solar or wind;
- Increased area management security with video cameras acting as sensor devices.
"Over the last few years, we've worked as part of IOWN Global Forum to set the stage for AI innovation powered by open source and deliver technologies that help us make smarter choices for the future. This is important and exciting work, and these results help prove that we can build AI-enabled solutions that are sustainable and innovative for businesses across the globe. With Red Hat OpenShift, we can help NTT provide large-scale AI data analysis in real time and without limitations," stated Chris Wright, chief technology officers and senior vice president of Global Engineering at Red Hat and board director of IOWN Global Forum.
"The NTT Group, in great collaboration with partners, is accelerating the development of IOWN to achieve a sustainable society. This IOWN PoC is an important step forward toward green computing for AI, which supports collective intelligence of AI. We are further improving IOWN's power efficiency by applying Photonics-Electronics Convergence technologies to a computing infrastructure. We aim to embody the sustainable future of net zero emissions with IOWN," Katsuhiko Kawazoe, senior executive vice president of NTT and chairman of IOWN Global Forum.
