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Data Science

Edge AI vs Federated Learning | Complete Overview

Dr. Jagreet Kaur Gill | 14 December 2024

Edge AI vs Federated Learning | Complete Overview
8:44
Edge AI vs Federated Learning

Federated Learning Overview

Federated learning is a Machine Learning technique that involves training an algorithm through several decentralized edge devices or servers that carry local data samples without sharing them. This method differs from conventional centralized machine learning methods, which require all local datasets to be submitted to a single server. Data protection, telecommunications, IoT, and pharmaceutics are among the sectors where it's used.

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Advancements Over Time 

A Brief History of Federated Learning Approaches 

Over the past few years, federated learning has evolved significantly, with researchers and practitioners developing new techniques and frameworks to enhance its capabilities: 

innovation

Model Aggregation Techniques

Federated averaging (FedAvg), for example, has been recommended to enhance the efficiency of federated learning. Therefore, depending on the data's non-IID distribution, the technique remains concerned with efficiently updating the model combination.

personalized

Personalization

This has led to local fine-tuning and meta-learning, among other approaches, as a way of helping to get those highly desired personal models. They enable models to learn from local data to bring that data closer home, reducing relevance and increasing precision.

computer

Robustness to Adversarial Attacks

As soon as people embraced federated learning in practice, they realized security was a problem. Measures were proposed for safely summarizing the model's received local updates and detecting attacks or other violations by participants.

learning

Cross-Silo Federated Learning

This variant allows information exchange between different organizations (silos) that cannot exchange data because of data protection issues. Usually, cross-organizational silo or federated learning refers to a situation.


Benefits of Federated Learning

Here are some primary benefits of federated machine learning:

  • FL allows devices such as smartphones to learn a shared prediction model collaboratively while maintaining the training data on the computer rather than uploading and storing it on a central server.

  • It moves model teaching to the edge, including gadgets like smartphones, laptops, IoT, and even "organizations" like hospitals that must work under stringent privacy regulations. Keeping personal data local is a significant security advantage.

  • Since prediction takes place on the system itself, real-time prediction is feasible. The time lag caused by sending raw data to a central server and then shipping the results back to the system is reduced by FL.

  • The prediction method works even though there is no internet connection because the models are stored on the device.

  • FL reduces the amount of hardware equipment available. FL versions need very little hardware, and what is available on mobile devices is more than adequate.

Challenges in Federated Learning

  • Expensive Communication

    Federated networks involve numerous devices where communication is significantly slower and costlier than local computation. Efficient communication methods are needed to transmit small model updates instead of entire datasets during training.

  • Systems Heterogeneity

    Devices in federated networks vary widely in hardware, connectivity, and power, leading to inconsistencies in performance. Only a small fraction of devices are active at any time, and their unreliability increases challenges like stragglers and fault tolerance.

  • Statistical Heterogeneity

    Data generated by devices in federated networks is often non-IID, with varying distributions and amounts, complicating modelling and increasing the risk of stragglers.

  • Privacy Concerns

    Sharing model updates rather than raw data in federated learning poses privacy risks. Enhancing privacy with differential privacy may reduce model performance and efficiency, creating a complex trade-off.

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What is an Edge AI?

Artificial intelligence systems have vastly advanced worldwide in recent years. Cloud computing has become an essential aspect of AI evolution as the number of business operations at work has increased. Furthermore, as consumers use their smartphones more often, companies realize the need to apply technologies to certain devices to get closer to customers and better satisfy their needs. As a result, the demand for Edge Computing will begin to expand.

The future of AI is on the Edge

Edge Artificial Intelligence is a framework that processes data provided by a hardware device at a local level using Machine Learning Algorithms. To process such data and make decisions in real-time, the computer does not need to be connected to the Internet in milliseconds. As a result, the cloud model's connectivity costs are significantly reduced. Edge AI removes the privacy concerns associated with transferring and maintaining massive amounts of data in the cloud, as well as bandwidth and latency constraints that hinder data storage power.

Edge AI Advantages

The significant advantages offered by Edge AI are:

  • Improves Customer Experience by lowering prices and lag times. This makes it easier to integrate wearable devices based on the user experience, such as bracelets that monitor workout and sleep habits in real time.

  • It raises the standard of protection for data privacy via local processing. Data is no longer transmitted in a consolidated cloud.

  • Technically, a decrease in needed bandwidth could decrease the cost of the contracted internet service.

  • Data scientists and AI developers are not required to maintain edge technology computers. It is an automated technology, and the graphic data flows are delivered dynamically for monitoring.

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How Edge AI Functions

Edge AI is a modern way of machine learning and artificial intelligence, which is allowed by computationally more efficient edge computers. We train a model on a suitable dataset for a particular task in a typical machine-learning scenario. Training the model entails programming it to identify trends in the training datasets. Inference takes comparatively little computing power, while training a machine learning model is a computationally costly activity well suited for the cloud.

 

The rise of low-cost computing and data storage services and cloud technology has opened up new avenues for deploying machine learning at scale. However, owing to bandwidth constraints, this comes at the expense of latency and data processing problems. The model is worthless if the data transmission fails, so the forecasts must also be transmitted to the end device. It's easy to see how this solution will fail in mission-sensitive systems with critical low latency. The cloud is the future of machine learning.

Edge Federated Learning Trends

As federated learning at the edge continues to evolve, several emerging trends are shaping its future: 

  1. Interoperability with Blockchain Platform 
    The application of federated learning and the integration of the blockchain system are becoming increasingly popular. The decentralization and data storage levels inherent in blockchain can benefit model updating processes by increasing the reliability of asset modification records. Trust between participants can be enhanced, making federated learning more secure and less prone to leakage.

  2. Techniques that make the Utilization of AccuWeb Services More Personalized 
    There is much demand for something unique, and thus, federated learning innovations are on the rise. Methods of sub-model selectivity improvement, including local fine-tuning and productive learning, are gradually embedded. Such approaches enable them simultaneously to learn user-specific preferences and still on shared knowledge among various models.

  3. AI for IoT Applications 
    The evolution of many ‘smart’ IoT devices poses interesting possibilities for federated learning. Since IoT devices produce and collect huge amounts of data, implementing federated learning allows for decentralized model training across devices while maintaining data confidentiality. This development direction especially concerns fields related to smart home systems, healthcare, and industrial applications.

  4. Privacy-Preserving Protocols 
    This is why the need for privacy-preserving protocols for federated learning is becoming crucial as the world becomes more worried about data privacy. Appreciation of approaches, which include differential privacy, secure multi-party computation, and homomorphic encryption, is being embraced to increase the security of federated learning.

    illustrates differential privacy Figure 1: Illustrates Differential Privacy

  5. Federated Transfer Learning 
    Federated transfer learning is a combination of federated learning and transfer learning techniques. This approach enables models learnt on one task to be reused or transferred to a new but related task for other devices. Federated transfer learning improves the model’s accuracy simultaneously with the problem of a lack of data on individual devices. 

Cloud Inference Architecture

Edge AI is a modern way of machine learning and artificial intelligence that is allowed by computationally more efficient edge computers. Unlike in the conventional environment, where the inference is performed on a cloud computing network, Edge AI allows the model to run on the edge computer without constant connectivity to the outside world. Training a model on large datasets and applying it to output is analogous to cloud computing.

Edge-based architecture - inference happens locally on a device.

The GDPR imposes major constraints on the training of machine learning models. Attackers see the centralized database as a lucrative target. The belief that edge computing alone will address privacy issues is incorrect. Federated learning is a viable solution for tackling the above problems. Federated learning is the technique for training a machine learning algorithm through many client devices without requiring direct access to the results. Only model updates are sent back to the central server.

Edge AI is the class of ML architecture in which the AI algorithms process the data on the edge of the network (the place where data is generated, i.e., locally) instead of sending it to the cloud. Click to explore about, Edge AI in Manufacturing

Federated learning Process Described

Edge computing will not completely overtake cloud computing but will operate with it. In general, cloud computing is a safer choice if the implementations are tolerant of cloud-based latencies. Edge computing is the only viable option for systems that involve real-time inference.

The Two Approaches in Comparison

Distributed large batch testing is akin to classical training, in which the data is stored in one central place. Federated learning is difficult to deal with batches that aren't uniformly spread. For federated learning to perform well, the distribution of classes across devices must be as close as possible. The output degrades when local dataset distributions are extremely inconsistent and non-IID.

A Preliminary Empirical Comparison

Big Batch, for example, necessitates higher learning speeds because applying the same parameters across all methodologies will be ineffective. We needed consistency for the by-epoch analogy to make sense.

Java vs Kotlin
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Key Insights

Edge technologies can deliver faster, more reliable operations and more profit margins. Large companies like Amazon and Google have been spending millions on advancing their Edge AI solutions. Data must be stored in the cloud, but user-generated data will be run and processed on the Edge. The increased demand for IoT applications would facilitate the introduction of 5G networks.

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dr-jagreet-gill

Dr. Jagreet Kaur Gill

Chief Research Officer and Head of AI and Quantum

Dr. Jagreet Kaur Gill specializing in Generative AI for synthetic data, Conversational AI, and Intelligent Document Processing. With a focus on responsible AI frameworks, compliance, and data governance, she drives innovation and transparency in AI implementation

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