The global edge computing market is expected to grow 30% a year for the next decade, with North America taking up nearly half the total, according to analyst firm Fact.MR.
The total value of the market today is $3.2 billion and is projected to grow to $44 billion in 2030, representing an increase of 13.7 times, a Fact.MR spokesman told FierceElectronics.
Hardware components such as sensors and routers are part of the total equation, but management software and related services are included in the total.
In industrial automation, sensors can be combined with edge management software and routers or nodes to remotely monitor and control production processes. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can be applied to aid efficiency.
North America takes up 46% of the total market today largely because of prominent edge computing companies. Fact.MR includes among the major edge computing players some well-known names like Cisco, Digi, General Electric, HPE, Honeywell, IBM, Intel and Microsoft.
The analyst firm also includes collaboration companies like Zoom, which has been buying up servers to increase user capacity with COVID-19, according to Fact.MR.
Google has also increased processing power to facilitate Hangouts, Google Classrooms and Google Business as well.
Energy and utility companies account for 18% of edge computing revenues as they apply efficiency and better control over energy grids offered with edge products.
Datacenters are expected to make up nearly one-third of total annual growth through 2030. Edge computing services will also make up about 31% of the total, Fact.MR said.
RELATED: Servers up 37% in 1Q on cloud/COVID, but global recession looms