Luxembourg – European cloud and CDN giant, Gcore, announced today the launch of its serverless Edge computing solution, FastEdge, engineered to revolutionize the cloud-native development landscape with its exceptional low latency and high performance. Built on the foundation of Gcore’s robust content delivery network (CDN), FastEdge extends across an impressive network of over 160 Edge nodes worldwide.
Understanding FastEdge
FastEdge represents a significant leap forward in serverless Edge computing technology. By leveraging Gcore’s extensive CDN infrastructure, FastEdge distributes custom code across its global network, ensuring an average latency of just 30 milliseconds. This innovative approach eliminates the complexities associated with server or infrastructure maintenance, offering a seamless experience for developers.
“FastEdge, our new Edge computing product, is designed to enable the dev community to build and deploy useful applications quickly, easily, and globally, without the limitations of traditional cloud computing,” said Andre Reitenbach, CEO of Gcore.
“Edge computing is the next big step in the evolution of CDN that empowers creative minds to innovate and deliver unique value eliminating geographical barriers.”
Innovations Behind FastEdge
One of the key innovations of FastEdge is its use of the WebAssembly runtime environment, which allows applications to launch quicker than traditional container-based solutions. This feature is particularly advantageous for supporting lightweight AI model execution at the Edge, thus removing the need for developers to invest in creating their own AI infrastructure.
FastEdge is currently available in an “early beta” form to JavaScript and Rust developers for free, with plans to extend support to more languages in the future.
The Evolution of CDN and Edge Computing
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) have been instrumental in speeding up web page performance since the late 1990s, with pioneers like Akamai and Cloudflare caching content close to users. The advent of Edge computing has taken this concept further, enabling more than just caching, by processing services closer to users.
In the competitive landscape, Gcore’s FastEdge stands out by offering a solution tailored for workloads such as AI inference, advanced image editing, personalization, A-B testing, and quick authentication. This places Gcore in direct competition with other CDN firms that have recently launched similar Edge and cloud offerings, aiming to capitalize on their existing infrastructures to challenge incumbent cloud providers.
Gcore’s Commitment to Innovation
In October 2023, Gcore further solidified its position as a leader in technological innovation by launching a generative AI cluster powered by Nvidia A100 and H100 Tensor Core GPUs in Luxembourg. This move, aimed at enhancing its AI and cloud computing capabilities, underscores Gcore’s commitment to providing cutting-edge solutions that meet the evolving needs of the global developer community.
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Luxembourg, Gcore offers a comprehensive suite of solutions including cloud, Edge computing, content delivery, hosting, security, and AI. With more than 160 points of presence in data centers worldwide, Gcore continues to expand its global footprint, ensuring high-quality, accessible, and efficient services for its clients.
The future of serverless edge could be CDN…
The launch of FastEdge by Gcore marks a significant milestone in the evolution of serverless Edge computing. By offering low latency, high performance, and the ease of cloud-native development without the complexity of traditional cloud computing, FastEdge is poised to become a game-changer in the industry. As we continue to witness the rapid advancement of technology, solutions like FastEdge demonstrate how innovation can eliminate geographical barriers, empowering developers to create impactful, global applications.
Photo by Taylor Vick on Unsplash
