Data centers have a role in enabling agrotech. And a new white paper from QTS focuses on this role. Small, remotely managed edge data centers will provide the proximity to rural areas to handle latency-sensitive, locally cached data requirements. These data centers will likely focus on autonomous vehicles, robots and drones that demand real-time updates, and may also support basic data mining and some machine learning. An edge data center could quickly process information to allow a strawberry picker to compare images to determine if a spot on a strawberry is an insect, dirt or disease.
This report from QTS highlights how improving farming yield is an issue that impacts all of us. We need farmers to be successful, and as technologists, they need us to help them get there. In addition to developing innovative IT solutions that can help them improve their processes, we need to advocate for and support powerful, yet affordable infrastructure in these rural areas. Once in place, this community will do the rest. It certainly won’t be easy, but farming simply isn’t easy. But famers, however, deserve a chance. And agrotech can help provide that chance.