We stand at the edge of a revolution that, up until now, has been a source of great excitement only among industry insiders in the IT space, but seems destined to be ready for the main stage among investors just around the corner as 5G network resources become the new standard, exposing dramatic inefficiencies in the network computing infrastructure that forms the nervous system of our 21st century technology dreams.
The key to these dreams is known as “edge computing”, and one little known small cap has been building a remarkable portfolio of market-leading assets targeting this opportunity: AFFLUENCE CORP/SH (OTCMKTS:AFFU).
The paradigm heading out the door is centralized cloud datacenter model, where a large and powerful – and massively energy intensive – datacenter sits at the heart of a large area to power its network infrastructure, creating an uneven spread of computational responsiveness with pockets of high latency and general unpredictability, making next-level mechanization and automation impossible, even with a 5G backbone.
The new model entering the picture and ascending toward inevitable dominance is a decentralized and distributed network of smaller, less-energy-intensive mini or nano datacenters powering a web of network infrastructure with low latency and better balance across the system, allowing the true power of the 5G revolution to become manifest, creating a leap in terms of smart-city and autonomous vehicle applications, along with many other clear advantages.
According to Affluence Corp. management, transformation in cloud/edge computing will impact robotics, AI, healthcare, manufacturing, datacenters, mobile devices, smart cities, and ‘autonomous things’, creating a wave of innovation that will dramatically improve our lives. These new technologies will bring dramatic performance improvements such as faster speeds, improved data capacity, and lower latency. Affluence aims to be at the center of this transformation.
The most recent expression of this vision by the company – which we will cover in more detail below – is its move to acquire Flexiscale Technologies Ltd., a clear leader in the edge computing domain.
Introducing Affluence (OTC:AFFU)
AFFLUENCE CORP/SH (OTCMKTS:AFFU) was incorporated in 2008 and initially focused on building an innovative social networking platform. However, in 2019, the company pivoted and reorganized as a holding company focused on the acquisition and roll-up of synergistic companies providing 5G enhancing infrastructure and technologies, edge computing, and innovative cloud solutions.
Through acquisition and partnership, Affluence’s goal is to build a world leading business which brings together edge cloud enhancing technology for the next generation of communication.
Major technology changes are disrupting the traditional networking sector. Current centralized infrastructure is inadequate to provide the resilience and bandwidth needed for the next generation of internet, which needs to be designed for machines. Affluence is working to provide the infrastructure and solutions to power industrial automation or smart cities, healthcare, AI, robotics and more.
The company seeks to position itself as a global leader in edge computing solutions that will power next generation internet and enable any town or city to become a ‘smart city’ through the company’s intelligent IoT smart city solution builder.
CEO James Honan has over 25 years of investment banking and Corporate Finance experience with Continental Bank, ABN Amro, LaSalle Bank and Ernst & Young where he developed business units focusing on debt and credit restructuring deals and developed products for the institutional banking markets
Rohan Chanmugam, a key board member, is Chairman of Clevercoms Ltd, a management consultancy advising the telecoms, media, and technology (TMT) sector and has over 30 years of experience in the industry. In addition to founding Clevercoms, Mr Chanmugam was a Senior Vice President at Equant (Orange Business Services), Managing Director BT A&M, Strategic Advisor to the CEO of COLT Telecom, and Non-Executive Director of Host Europe Corporation.
To the Edge
The basic premise behind edge computing is that the internet, as we now know it, was built for humans to use. But the internet, as we will know it in a few years, will be built mostly for machines to use, and humans will benefit massively from this transition.
Humans are slow. We think with biochemical interactions. Nothing takes place at the speed of light. As a result, we are fine with microsecond delays and pauses and buffering and loading and intermediated events all along the way because our minds don’t work fast enough to suffer from those imperfections.
But, as the horizon of network speed and power pushes outward, we discover the limitations of this model as we try to exploit the better network coming into place. Edge computing is about a distributed computing paradigm that brings computation and data storage closer to the location where it is needed, to improve response times and save bandwidth, which ultimately opens up new frontiers of potential networked smart systems powering the partial and complete automation of so many things we will be able to take for granted years from now.
This opens up dynamic opportunities to power our downtown centers with a circulatory system of solar-powered autonomous electric vehicles taking you where you want when you want, with no parking lots, street signs, traffic police, parking meters, or accidents. Imagine saving 30% of all fossil fuel use while eliminating urban drunk driving deaths.
And that’s just how it will impact one small part of life.
The same revolution will make healthcare better, more responsive in emergencies, and far less costly. It will simplify and streamline our power grids and utility systems, and ensure supply chain logistics that make local economies more real-time efficient, which reduces overall volatility and grants end market consumers and source-level producers more security economically. That has implications for basic needs such as food and medicine, as well as purity and cost issues in the production process.
AI and robotics will come to redefine a great deal of how we live our lives in the near future. But these technologies need a faster, more reliable, lower-latency network infrastructure to live in to really make a qualitative difference in our lives.
The Flexiscale Deal
That’s where Flexiscale Technologies Ltd. comes into the picture.
While we don’t yet know the specifics of the deal, it would appear that Affluence is acquiring Flexiscale, which gives it an A-level thoroughbred in the edge computing race.
Flexiscale already has a two-year lead in the marketplace and may be the only edge cloud computing infrastructure company in the world that has already fully developed and begun deploying this game-changing technology.
It has a fully deployed Edge Cloud platform, operational and technological advantage to drive profitability on further acquisitions, energy efficient Metro datacentre in place with metro wide connectivity, highly efficient datacentre infrastructure with 85% reduction in space, 40% reduction in operating costsm and 30% increase in performance, and a partnership with Flexiant for the Edge Cloud Orchestration Software, along with a fully functional Application IoT ready Edge Service Delivery platform.
At present, Flexiscale is a leadership play on the edge cloud computing network infrastructure rebirth theme, which promises to be one of the most powerful themes driving capital allocation in the quarters and years ahead.
