Key takeaways:
- AI is no longer fiction, but it needs ample and accurate data.
- As more industries evolve and adopt geospatial data products and analytics, there will be more opportunities for collaborative innovation.
- The telecommunications industry is at the core of intelligent connectivity; competition will be fierce for emerging IoT solutions. Is your network ready?
DigitalGlobe can help you build the right solution with accuracy, scalability and flexibility.
Last year, on my way to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress (now called MWC), I used that in-flight time to read Dan Brown’s “Origin,” a thriller featuring symbologist Robert Langdon where much of the action takes place, coincidentally, in Barcelona. Another character in the book is an AI-driven concierge who guides our hero in and out of danger. It is a compelling story of what intelligent connectivity could be one day. At this year’s MWC, the theme was intelligent connectivity—an indication of how quickly AI is becoming an essential component of several industries.
Along with all of the traditional telco operators and ecosystem companies, MWC19 hosted a long list of AI-focused exhibitors like IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Google, Daimler and BMW that shared their vision of intelligent connectivity. While many conversations at the event were about AI for internal network use, my team was there to talk about the value of DigitalGlobe AI solutions for external network applications. These are dynamic, high-resolution geodata solutions that can keep up with increasing capacity needs and deliver the accuracy demanded of 5G to power intelligent connectivity.
For example, network IT may have an AI algorithm in place for load balancing, but a natural disaster can take out dozens of sites in seconds. An external AI that monitors weather could help a company prepare for allocation or at the very least, deliver early warnings signs to initiate communications.
Another critical use case for external AI is change detection. Much like the AI concierge in “Origin,” running change detection on top of satellite imagery can help mitigate the dangers of network degradation by preparing teams for changes like increased capacity needs or seasonal disruption. There is ample opportunity for external AI to provide the timely intelligence that improves connectivity and customer satisfaction.
There are also Big Data challenges ahead for both network operators and IoT partners. And this is where foundational geospatial data by DigitalGlobe’s constellation of satellites and our work in artificial intelligence and machine learning comes in. By applying AI/ML to our high-resolution satellite imagery, we can create 3D geodata, high-definition maps, and precision building footprints, which offer the accuracy and scalability required for improving propagation models for 5G, training data for AI, detecting disruptive change, and much more.
MWC was a great opportunity for my biz dev team to show off what DigitalGlobe’s geospatial data and analytics can do to push valuable innovation forward across all industries, not just the telco space.
Take autonomous vehicle programs, for example. Building a high-definition (HD) map based on satellite imagery for an AI algorithm to read to drive a car is vastly different than the navigation apps we humans rely on today. We can also use algorithms and satellite imagery to create complex, large-scale mapping projects for urban planning and niche projects like navigable drone airspace.
Another example, the multispectral bands in DigitalGlobe’s satellite imagery can provide the multispectral vegetation health indices required for IoT agriculture solutions. We can also deliver remote monitoring and analytics for oil pipeline monitoring and construction. The list goes on and on.
Intelligent connectivity will change nearly everything we do in business and in life. The right geospatial solution can improve accuracy, scalability and flexibility. Whether you’re optimizing a network for 5G or developing an IoT solution to advance your industry, DigitalGlobe is more than a geodata source. We are a partner that can help you build, deploy and optimize the right geospatial solution so that you can hit the ground running.
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