Intel GeoSpacial

Intel Launches Geospatial Data Management and AI Framework Using AWS

2021

Intel Geospatial, a new venture from semiconductor chip manufacturer Intel, recently launched an open, cloud-based framework that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to visualize, analyze, and manage geospatial data collected by satellites, drones, and ground-based vehicles with sensors from Mobileye, an Intel company. Intel Geospatial’s focus is currently on electric utilities, oil and gas companies, city governments, and ecosystem service providers that lack big-data infrastructure. Using a software-as-a-service model, Intel Geospatial’s framework enables organizations to automate the inspection of infrastructure assets for maintenance issues—from damaged equipment and leaking oil tanks to missing traffic signs on busy city streets.

For a seamless user experience, the system must ingest data and then visualize, geolocate, and format it for AI-powered analytics. To help accomplish this goal, Intel Geospatial turned to Amazon Web Services (AWS) for its global presence, support, flexibility, and array of services. “There’s a growing need for cloud-based geospatial software that is user centric,” says Vijay Krishnan, general manager of Intel Geospatial. “We’re placing a big bet on the cloud and on AWS. We configured our innovative software so that users can unlock its capabilities, even if they don’t have expertise in data science or geographic information systems.”

Intel Launches Geospatial Data Management and AI Framework Using AWS

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Multipetabyte datasets are no longer uncommon. This explosion in data is driving an increasing need for compute resources and bandwidth.”

Vijay Krishnan
General Manager, Intel Geospatial

Harnessing Multisource Geospatial Data

Intel Geospatial launched the software-as-a-service offering in 2020 as part of Intel’s startup accelerator known as the Emerging Growth Incubation Group. The scalable software harnesses geospatial data, cloud flexibility, immersive 3D visualization, and recent advances in AI analytics to help customers operate efficiently. “It isn’t good enough to find out that a problem has occurred,” says Krishnan. “Our customers need to know about problems before they occur. Our system helps make that possible.”

In developing its solution, speed to market was essential, and building the infrastructure from scratch wasn’t practical. To power its technology, Intel Geospatial chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) for its secure, resizable compute capacity. For visualization, the company uses specific Amazon EC2 instances optimized for such workloads. To provide actionable insights, the system analyzes massive datasets, such as LiDAR data from mobile and aerial mapping systems, using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), an object storage service that offers industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. “Multipetabyte datasets are no longer uncommon,” says Krishnan. “This explosion in data is driving an increasing need for compute resources and bandwidth.”

Intel Geospatial also uses AWS Lambda, a serverless compute service that lets users run code without provisioning or managing servers. It enables the system to scale up and down seamlessly in response to customer demands. “Elasticity is a massive benefit,” says Krishnan. “Our customers start small, typically through a limited proof of concept, after which they scale up along multiple vectors.”

Digitally Transforming Businesses with Next-Generation AI

The AWS data link architecture supports large, unstructured data, which enables the company to accommodate the growing storage requirements of its customers. The resulting solution is an immersive, real-world 3D environment that inspects assets, highlights issues, measures in 3D, and enables users to collaborate with stakeholders in real time. Intel Geospatial benefits from the cloud’s cost efficiency, and AWS services enable the company to deploy solutions with less effort.

For example, an Intel Geospatial customer with oil field infrastructure has an ongoing need to find leaks quickly and prioritize them for corrective maintenance. However, oil spills can have irregular shapes that are difficult to identify, and shadows can look like oil spills, making identification a challenge. To minimize false positives, the system must recognize key characteristics and discern differences. Intel Geospatial developed systems to ingest timely visual data and analyze it with AI software. Innovative algorithms identify and locate spills so maintenance workers can inspect problems, stop leaks, clean up spills, and help promote a safe environmental site.

Intel Geospatial also offers data lake architecture for data management and analysis to solve significant problems for Fortune 500 customers. Organizations with compliance requirements appreciate AWS GovCloud, which gives government customers and their partners the flexibility to architect cloud solutions that comply with stringent requirements. And some customers restrict data from physically leaving certain countries—a constraint accommodated by the global presence of AWS. In addition, Intel Geospatial’s annual subscriptions are geared to meet customers’ reliability needs by offering service-level agreements that specify 99.9 percent uptime.

Using Visual Data to Optimize Infrastructure and Minimize Environmental Risks

Intel Geospatial has created cost-efficient solutions that work for large and small customers and plans to expand to multiple countries. The company is also collaborating with partners to roll out analytics offering automated data management and AI-powered insights. Customers can choose analytics from Intel and Intel partners to define parameters for identifying and prioritizing asset risks, such as fire hazards, vegetation encroachment, maintenance issues, and more.

“As we grow this business, we fully expect AWS will keep up with our needs,” Krishnan says. “Knowing we have solid infrastructure gives us the confidence to vigorously pursue new business opportunities.”

Intel Geospatial visualization of LiDAR data on vegetation encroachment.

Example Intel Geospatial visualization of LiDAR data on vegetation encroachment.

About Intel

Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, in Silicon Valley.

Benefits of AWS

Saved time using AWS managed services
Extended reach with global presence of AWS
Developed AI for asset management
Built a solution that accommodates customers’ storage needs
Enabled the company to offer customers 99.9% uptime
Achieved superior performance running geospatial workloads at scale

AWS Services Used

Amazon EC2

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale cloud computing easier for developers.

Amazon S3

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is an object storage service that offers industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. This means customers of all sizes and industries can use it to store and protect any amount of data for a range of use cases, such as websites, mobile applications, backup and restore, archive, enterprise applications, IoT devices, and big data analytics.

AWS GovCloud

From Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), Personally Identifiable Information (PII), sensitive patient medical records, and financial data to law enforcement data, export controlled data and other forms of CUI, AWS GovCloud (US) Regions can help customers address compliance at every stage of their cloud journey.

AWS Lambda

AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers, creating workload-aware cluster scaling logic, maintaining event integrations, or managing runtimes.

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