EDGE AI POD

"Do you trust your AI models? Honestly, I don't trust them. We should not trust them." These powerful words from STMicroelectronics' Mounia Kharbouche perfectly capture the security challenge facing the edge AI world today.As organizations rush to deploy AI workloads at the edge, a complex security landscape emerges that demands careful navigation. This fascinating panel discussion dives deep into the three major threat vectors organizations must prepare for: algorithmic attacks that manipulate model behavior, physical attacks on hardware, and side-channel analysis that can steal proprietary models in mere hours.Through vivid examples—like specially designed glasses that can fool facial recognition systems—the panelists demonstrate how seemingly minor vulnerabilities can lead to major security breaches. They explore the security paradox of edge deployment: while distributing AI provides resilience against single points of failure, it simultaneously creates numerous potential attack surfaces requiring protection.The conversation reveals a critical tension between economics and security that often drives deployment decisions. Organizations frequently prioritize cost considerations over comprehensive security measures, sometimes with devastating consequences. All panelists emphasize that security must be a fundamental consideration from the beginning of any AI project, not an afterthought tacked on at deployment.Looking to the future, the discussion turns to emerging threats like agentic AI, where autonomous agents might access resources without proper security constraints. The panel concludes with a sobering examination of post-quantum cryptography and why organizations must prepare now for threats that may not materialize for years but will target systems deployed today.Whether you're developing edge AI solutions or implementing them in your organization, this discussion provides essential insights for securing your systems against current and future threats. Join us to discover how to balance innovation with protection in the rapidly evolving world of edge AI.Send us a textSupport the showLearn more about the EDGE AI FOUNDATION - edgeaifoundation.org

The humble printer - that device gathering dust in the corner of your office - is about to undergo a remarkable transformation. Thanks to advancements in generative AI, printers and scanners are evolving from passive endpoints into intelligent document processing powerhouses.Arniban from Wipro Limited unveils how visual language models (VLMs) like QN 2.5 VL and LayoutLMv3 are being deployed directly on edge devices rather than in the cloud. This breakthrough approach addresses critical data privacy concerns while eliminating the need for continuous network connectivity - perfect for sensitive enterprise environments where document security is paramount.These multimodal AI implementations enable remarkable capabilities that were previously impossible. Imagine a printer that can automatically extract complex tables from documents and convert them into visually appealing charts. Or one that can intelligently correct errors, translate content between languages, adapt layouts for visually impaired users, or even remove advertisements when printing web pages - all without sending your data to external servers.The technical implementation involves clever optimizations to run these sophisticated models on relatively constrained hardware. Through techniques like 4-bit quantization, image downscaling, and leveraging NVIDIA's optimized libraries, these models can function effectively on devices with 16GB of GPU memory - bringing AI intelligence directly to the point where documents are produced.While challenges remain in handling large documents and managing the thermal constraints of embedded devices, this technology marks the beginning of a new era in intelligent document processing. The days of printers as "dumb" input-output machines are numbered. The future belongs to intelligent endpoints that understand what they're printing and can transform it in ways that add tremendous value to users.Try imagining what your workflow could look like when your printer becomes your intelligent document assistant. The possibilities are just beginning to unfold.Send us a textSupport the showLearn more about the EDGE AI FOUNDATION - edgeaifoundation.org

The technological revolution sparked by generative AI threatens to create the deepest digital divide we've ever seen. In this illuminating talk, Danilo Pau from STMicroelectronics reveals how only a handful of companies worldwide possess the resources to fully harness large-scale generative AI, while the rest of humanity risks being left behind.Pau takes us through the sobering reality of today's AI landscape: hyperparameterized models requiring nuclear power plants for training, hundreds of millions in costs, and worrying environmental impacts. But rather than accept this centralized future, he presents a compelling alternative path – bringing generative AI to edge devices.Through a comprehensive survey of recent research, Pau demonstrates that generative AI is already running on edge devices ranging from smartphones to microcontrollers. His team's work with STMicroelectronics processors showcases practical implementations including style transfer, language models, and perhaps most impressively, an intelligent thermostat capable of natural language interaction with reasoning capabilities.What emerges is a vision for AI not as another backend classifier but as a transformative interface between humans and machines. "GenAI is not for another detector," Pau explains. "We need to offer new added value" through natural interactions that understand context and can reason about the world.For researchers and developers, this talk provides concrete pathways to explore: from audio processing as a "low-hanging fruit" to visual question answering systems that run on minimal hardware. The future of AI isn't just in massive data centers – it's in the devices all around us, waiting to be unleashed through energy-efficient processing and innovative approaches to model optimization.Ready to join the movement bringing AI capabilities to everyone? Explore how edge-based generative AI could transform your products and help bridge the growing digital divide.Send us a textSupport the showLearn more about the EDGE AI FOUNDATION - edgeaifoundation.org

What happens when trillions of AI agents can discover, communicate, and collaborate across organizational boundaries? Pradyumna Shari from MIT Media Lab unveils NANDA (Networked AI Agents in a Decentralized Architecture), a groundbreaking open protocol that could fundamentally transform how we interact with artificial intelligence.Drawing a fascinating parallel between computing history and our AI trajectory, Pradyumna explains how we've evolved from isolated large language models to action-capable agents that can reason and act in the world. Yet despite this progress, we're still missing the crucial infrastructure that would allow these agents to find and collaborate with each other across organizational boundaries – essentially, an "Internet of AI Agents."Using a relatable birthday party planning scenario, Pradyumna demonstrates how interconnected agents could effortlessly coordinate calendars, groceries, and bakery orders without human micromanagement. But enabling this vision requires solving complex challenges around agent discovery, authentication, verifiability, and privacy that differ significantly from traditional web architecture.At the heart of NANDA's approach is a three-layer registry system designed specifically for dynamic, peer-to-peer agent interactions. The demonstration showcases how this architecture enables diverse communications – from personal agents that adapt messages between family members to commercial interactions between customers and businesses, all while supporting different communication protocols like Google's A2A and Anthropic's MCP.What makes NANDA particularly exciting is its commitment to democratic, open-source development. Rather than dictating standards, the project invites collaboration from academic and industry partners to build this agent ecosystem together, ensuring it remains transparent, trustworthy, and accessible to all.Visit nanda.mit.edu to learn more about how you can contribute to this vision of a decentralized, collaborative future for artificial intelligence.Send us a textSupport the showLearn more about the EDGE AI FOUNDATION - edgeaifoundation.org

Stepping into a future where AI doesn't require the cloud, NXP is revolutionizing edge computing by bringing generative AI directly to microprocessors. Alberto Alvarez offers an illuminating journey through NXP's approach to private, secure, and efficient AI inference that operates entirely at the edge.The heart of NXP's innovation is their EAQ GenAI Flow, a comprehensive software pipeline designed for iMX SoCs that enables both fine-tuning and optimization of AI models. This dual capability allows developers to adapt openly available Large Language Models for specific use cases without compromising data privacy, while also tackling the challenge of memory footprint through quantization techniques that maintain model accuracy. The conversational AI implementation creates a seamless experience by combining wake word detection, speech recognition, language processing with retrieval-augmented generation, and natural speech synthesis—all accelerated by NXP's Neutron NPU.Most striking is NXP's partnership with Kinara, which introduces truly groundbreaking multimodal AI capabilities running entirely at the edge. Their demonstration of the LAVA model—combining LLAMA3's 8 billion parameters with CLIP vision encoding—showcases the ability to process both images and language queries without any cloud connectivity. Imagine industrial systems analyzing visual scenes, detecting subtle anomalies like water spills, and providing spoken reports—all while keeping sensitive data completely private. With quantization reducing these massive models to manageable 4-bit and 8-bit precision, NXP is making previously impossible edge AI applications practical reality.Ready to experience the future of edge intelligence? Explore NXP's application code hub to start building with EIQ GenAI resources on compatible hardware and discover how your next project can harness the power of generative AI without surrendering privacy or security to the cloud.Send us a textSupport the showLearn more about the EDGE AI FOUNDATION - edgeaifoundation.org