Interview: Sunlight, AI & Machine Learning Awards finalist

"Sunlight was born out of a collaboration with ARM in 2013 and that was to build a lightweight hypervisor that could really efficiently virtualise low power and embedded processor platforms"

Artificial Intelligence as a concept has existed for decades, but only in recent years have businesses begun large-scale adoption. AI technologies have the potential to reshape the world that we live in and change the way that we work.

The Computing AI & Machine Learning Awards recognises the best companies, individuals, and projects in the AI space today. The awards cover every corner of the industry: security, ethics, data analysis, innovation and more, as well as showcasing the movers and shakers: the technology heroes and projects that deserve industry-wide praise.

This year, winners will be announced via an exclusive awards eBook on Wednesday 18 May.

Among the finalists is Sunlight, who has been shortlisted for the Best Cloud or Networking Automation Tool category.

We talked to Julian Chesterfield, the founder and CEO of Sunlight, about how their company has used AI and machine learning for success.

Chesterfield says Sunlight has created a complete "Edge-as-a-Service" technology framework, which can run on the smallest embedded devices at the far edge, managed from a single pane of glass right through to the core data centre.

"We are a key enabler for many edge technology solutions, which includes both hardware platforms and software that needs to be able to execute at the edge," says Chesterfield.

"Today we work with an ecosystem of partners to make ‘Edge-as-a-Service' as simple as one, two, three. This provides really straightforward ordering process from our portal, factory installation and platform delivery and shipping out to the remote site."

According to Chesterfield, Sunlight has recently launched their Edge-as-a-Service platform with their partners Avnet Integrated.

"This is a new platform that makes it really simple for our customers and partners to roll out a complete 'Edge-as-a-service' capability. This includes a digital storefront which provides the partners with a very simple portal to simply order preconfigured edge infrastructure solutions."

When asked what Sunlight is working on this year, Chesterfield said they are always increasing their supported hardware footprint and will shortly be releasing support for the Nvidia Jetson platform.

"As edge computing demands rise, we believe so will the demands for ARM-based processes, leading to a massive proliferation in 2022 and years ahead. The industry is already seeing some big moves in this direction, and the Nvidia Jetson platform is one of the key platforms that is important to be able to support in this space."

Sunlight, according to Chesterfield, is in a unique position when it comes to being able to support ARM-based Nvidia Jetson platforms.

"So we're very excited about that launch, and there's going to be a series of announcements coming out in the very near future."

To find out more Sunlight and what they are working on this year, watch our video interview with Mr Chesterfield now.