Wallaroo.AI, VMware Partner to Drive Deployment of 5G Edge ML

Wallaroo.AI, the enabler in operationalizing machine learning to ROI in the cloud, in decentralized networks, and at the edge, and VMware, which enables organizations to build, run, manage, connect, and protect edge-native applications with VMware Edge Compute Stack, has announced a strategic agreement to provide the first unified edge ML/artificial intelligence (AI) deployment and operations platform specifically tailored for the unique needs of global communications service providers (CSPs).

With the advent of 5G, CSPs have new ways of monetizing their networks through industrial IoT and private networks. But supporting these dynamic, resilient, and decentralized networks at scale requires ML at the edge, which comes with several unique challenges around deployment and management.

The VMware/Wallaroo.AI solution will mitigate these challenges and help CSPs drive more value from their AI projects for themselves and their customers. It will enable easy deployment, efficient inferencing, and continuous optimization of ML models to 5G edge locations and distributed networks. It will also provide a unified operations center to observe, manage, and scale the many edge deployments telcos typically need all from one place.

Both VMware and Wallaroo.AI are members of the Open Grid Alliance (OGA), which actively works to build the Internet for tomorrow’s real-time immersive, intelligent world at the edge. As a result of this focus, the new VMware/Wallaroo.AI platform will be able to operate across cloud, radio access networks (RAN), and the edge environments that are elements of the emerging low latency, highly distributed Internet of the future.

“Our partnership with Wallaroo.AI will equip telecom operators to much more easily put their ML to work in distributed 5G networks, whether that’s to better secure and optimize the networks themselves, or to provide low-latency services to businesses or consumers, all while removing the underlying complexity,” said Stephen Spellicy, Vice President of Service Provider Marketing, Enablement and Business Development, VMware.

“We assembled the Wallaroo.AI team to have deep first-hand experience of the challenges enterprises face getting ML to actually realize value - whether in the cloud, at the edge, or distributed networks,” said Vid Jain, CEO and founder of Wallaroo.AI. “That’s why we created a software platform that dramatically improves the likelihood of success and lowers the cost for ML in production. Building partnerships for integrated solutions with leading firms like VMware allows us to offer best-of-breed solutions in different industries, and I am really excited to be working with VMware on this joint vision for telco customers.”

The solution will enable:

Easy deployment of models trained in one environment to many edge endpoints
Easier testing and continuous optimization of live model accuracy
Automated observability and drift detection
The ability to serve full-fidelity models even in resource constrained edge environments
Integration with common ML development environments (such as Databricks) and major Cloud platforms (such as Azure).

Wallaroo.AI empowers enterprise AI teams to operationalize Machine Learning (ML) to drive positive outcomes with a unified software platform that enables deployment, observability, optimization and scalability of ML in the cloud, in decentralized networks, and at the edge. The unified Wallaroo.AI platform enables enterprise AI teams to easily deploy ML in seconds with no fuss or engineering overhead.

They can then observe and optimize in real-time from a self-service operations center. Enterprises can run at scale with 80% less infrastructure and turbocharge their Databricks and Cloud ML production workflows using familiar dev tools. Wallaroo.AI is backed by Microsoft’s venture fund, M12, and leading VCs including Boldstart, Contour Ventures, Enicac, Greycroft, and Ridgeline.