SAS Global Forum Brings AI, IoT and Edge to the Front

IoT Evolution is at SAS Global Forum at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado this week, and there is literally too much to learn. We’re doing our best, though, and we started with the kickoff General Session, hosted by Jim Goodnight, CEO, SAS. 

The data acquisition space is just getting going, Goodnight said. “Most data goes unanalyzed, but we’re changing that.”
And that’s the main statement of intention from the CEO: more analytics means more intelligence. And that’s good for every industry. “The old is falling away and we are speeding toward a brighter future,” he said. 

After the inspirational portion of the session, Goodnight started bringing out his subject matter experts. First up was data scientist Jonathan Wexler, who live demoed the latest features of the SAS visual analytics modeling software. Wexler and Goodnight played with the platform’s ability to process with neural nets and many other processing protocols, presented data in an astonishing level of granularity and globalism, and showed how it can all be published in a variety of ways without the need for recoding. 

Up next was Oliver Schabenberger, CTO and recently named COO at SAS. He talked a lot about IoT, the edge, and automation.
“We have to learn to control automated systems and to trust them,” he said. The reason for that is because he foresees a “data-driven world made better by analytics” and that can only be achieved by admitting and accepting that “about 40 percent of all IoT data needs to be acted upon at the edge and doesn’t ever need to reach the data center,” Schabenberger said. 

He said that SAS is focused on these issues and that the industry can and should expect the company to stay with its core strengths while developing its insights into new areas like IoT and cloud analytics. 

“SAS is a human system,” Schabenberger said, and it is going to cultivate the analytics market. “To cultivate is to create conditions suitable for growth. My task is to create the right conditions for growth.”

There’s more to come on SAS Global Forum, and for more on analytics throughout the IoT, Register now for The Smart City Event and the Industrial IoT Conference, both taking place in June at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ken Briodagh is a writer and editor with more than a decade of experience under his belt. He is in love with technology and if he had his druthers would beta test everything from shoe phones to flying cars.

Edited by Ken Briodagh