How to Accelerate AI with a Future-Proof Digital Infrastructure

Benefiting from its robust network infrastructure and geographical proximity to mainland China, Hong Kong has been rapidly emerging as a regional tech hub. Over the past decade, the HKSAR government has been ramping up its efforts to accelerate technology and innovation advancement. In the last three years alone, it has allocated over HK$100 billion to support key innovations and technology areas to propel the city into a smart future – with Artificial Intelligence (AI) being a dominant focus. ^[1]

According to a KPMG report, 78% of businesses in Hong Kong believe in the benefits of AI, particularly in improving quality and enhancing efficiency.[2] With an awareness of AI’s significant role in a digital world, businesses focusing efforts on boosting the development and deployment of AI, taking the technology from hype to revenue creator. However, this process often involves complex computing and IT environments that create roadblocks to evolution. So how can businesses get AI development off on the right foot?

Why is interconnection the key to AI development?

The magic of AI lies in how fast and intelligently a model built on machine learning can process and analyze data to conduct inferences, reduce human workloads, and move promptly to help companies stay ahead of the game. Although the amount of data needed for building an AI model depends on its complexity, an enormous data set is still required to support testing and applications, be it for machine learning or interference. As such, getting closer to data sources and having the ability to securely store, easily access, and efficiently handle the data is critical for any AI company to thrive.

In addition, some AI companies have been seeking out cloud platforms to support data-intensive workloads and processing, triggering serious security concerns. A survey conducted by Deloitte revealed that 62% of AI adopters consider cybersecurity risks as a major or extreme concern, but only 39% said that they were prepared to address those risks.^[3] This makes a hybrid IT architecture combining cloud and on-premises capabilities necessary, with the connection between the two environments being key in underpinning secure computation processes to protect data flows.

This is where interconnection comes into play. Leveraging interconnection, AI companies can enjoy private and direct connection to IT systems and data sources that are spread across public clouds, private data centers and edge locations, making it possible to collect and save data for computing. By accessing vibrant business ecosystems, this will also enable AI companies to work closely with partners to solve performance and integration barriers.

Leveraging AI-ready infrastructure to accelerate the journey – Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks and Precision Robotics

To help AI companies unlock new capabilities and seize opportunities, Equinix is poised to help them build the foundational digital infrastructure they need to achieve technological breakthroughs and fast-track their digital advantage. Equinix recently supported Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) to bring together the digital infrastructure that AI companies need to speed up their AI R&D projects. Through this deployment, AI R&D companies can enjoy private, secure and high-speed connectivity to HKSTP’s newly launched STP Platform.

Precision Robotics, a partner company of HKSTP, is a surgical robotics start-up from Imperial College London. The company aims to develop next generation surgical robots to support the future of precision surgery for personalized healthcare and improved quality of life. To support its vision, Precision Robotics needed a high-power digital infrastructure to run its IT system for machine learning and AI development. Through the deployment in the Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) in Hong Kong – HK4, Precision Robotics has successfully built a foundational and future-ready digital infrastructure on Platform Equinix® for secure data storage, processing, analysis and machine learning, further accelerating its R&D of innovative surgical solutions for medical doctors.

Expanding your AI horizons with Equinix

Building towards truly intelligent artificial intelligence requires a robust digital infrastructure which forms a solid foundation to advance R&D and support collaborations with partners. Listen to this webinar to find out how Equinix can help you Illuminate the journey ahead and unleash the full potential of AI.

[1] https://www.chinadailyhk.com/article/158682

[2] https://home.kpmg/cn/en/home/news-media/press-releases/2020/10/google-hk-releases-the-smarter-digital-city-ai-for-everyone-whitepaper.html

[3] https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/cognitive-technologies/state-of-ai-and-intelligent-automation-in-business-survey.html