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AI Inferencing at the Edge — Start-Ups and Vendors to Watch for 2026

Nina Turner — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective profiles start-ups and established semiconductor vendors competing for AI inferencing workloads at the edge in 2026. The document covers 10 global start-ups spanning the United States, Israel, the Netherlands, South Korea, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, and Slovakia that have received funding or achieved meaningful commercial traction in the past 12 months, alongside 12 major established vendors.

“Edge AI inference has crossed the threshold from proof of concept to production. The companies that navigate 2026 well will be those that match silicon architecture to workload reality, prioritize software portability, and consider supply chain geography,” says Nina Turner, research director, Enabling Technologies: AI Edge Processor Architectures, IDC.

Agentic AI Implications for Enterprise IaaS Network Services Strategies

Taranvir Singh — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective highlights how Agentic AI is transforming enterprise networking and shifting the role of the network from simple data transport to an intelligent, policy-driven fabric. As AI agents drive dynamic, distributed workflows, enterprises are consolidating around IaaS network services by cloud service providers for high-performance connectivity, efficient application networking, and integrated security and governance. Success in agentic AI deployments depends on programmatic networking architectures, agent-aware functionalities, and strategic partnerships with providers offering specialized AI networking expertise and production-ready solutions.

“Networking is foundational to agentic AI. Its pervasive presence across AI agent interactions positions it as an important enabler of end-to-end connectivity, security, and governance,” says Taranvir Singh, research manager, Cloud Networking Services, IDC. “For AI agents to operate at production scale, the network must function as an intelligent policy fabric, not just an underlying transport layer.”

Autodesk To Acquire MaintainX: Converging Design, Make, and Operate Across the Industrial Lifecycle

Lorenzo Veronesi, Gunjan Bassi, Jeffrey Hojlo — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Cisco Live 2026: Building the Platform for Agentic Infrastructure Operations

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

At Cisco Live 2026, Cisco advanced one of its clearest strategic narratives in years: the network is becoming the operating and defense substrate for the agentic enterprise. The centerpiece was Cisco Cloud Control, a unified platform that brings networking, security, observability, collaboration, compute, telemetry, and AI agents into a common operational environment.

Digital Twins, AI, and Data Platforms for Predictive Transportation Operations

Ravikant Sharma — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation examines how AI, real-time data platforms, and digital twins are converging to shift transportation operations across airports, railways, and ports — from reactive, legacy-constrained management to predictive operational intelligence.

The document establishes the strategic context through six converging global pressures that make the status quo indefensible, diagnoses the internal readiness gap leveraging IDC’s surveys and FutureScape predictions, and introduces a three-pillar operational intelligence model in which all three capabilities must be designed to interlock from the start. It walks through each pillar in depth, presents verified 2025–2026 case studies demonstrating the model in production across all three pillars, and closes with six strategic recommendations for agencies navigating the transition to predictive operations at scale.

“Leadership in transportation will not be decided by the scale of infrastructure; it will be decided by the intelligence layered on top of it. AI, data platforms, and digital twins are not technology investments. They are the operating model of the predictive era,” says Ravi Kant Sharma, research director, Government Insights, IDC.

FIFA World Cup 2026 Is a Live Edge AI Deployment at Global Scale: What the Lenovo Partnership Reveals About Distributed Inference Architecture

Olga Yashkova — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Lenovo and FIFA World Cup 2026 announced a technology partnership to deploy an AI-powered infrastructure platform across 16 venues, more than 600 sites in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, all monitored and tracked from the Intelligent Command Center and supported by more than 17,000 Lenovo and Motorola devices. This represents one of the most substantial distributed edge AI inference deployments to date.

IDC Survey: European Cloud Print Management Adoption

Jacqui Hendriks — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey presents findings from IDC's European Imaging, Printing, and Document Solutions (IPDS) Survey, conducted in April 2026 among 2,057 respondents across Europe. The document explores the current state of cloud-based device and print management adoption, highlighting the continued dominance of hybrid deployment models, the barriers, and the factors driving some organizations to return to on-premises infrastructure.

The survey also examines the role of changing business requirements, unmet expectations, and security concerns in cloud print deployment outcomes, with data available for analysis by country/region, company size, and industry.

IDC Survey: Print/Device Management Solutions Providers

Jacqui Hendriks — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey draws on data from IDC's European Imaging, Printing, and Document Solutions (IPDS) Survey, conducted in April 2026, among 2,057 respondents across eight European countries.

This presentation examines the competitive landscape of print and device management (PDM) solution providers across European organizations, analyzing vendor market share by country, company size, and industry vertical. It explores how vendor positioning shifts across different market segments, where concentration and fragmentation coexist, and what awareness gaps reveal about the maturity of the PDM category at different organizational scales.

IDC Survey: Print/Device Management — Adoption, Benefits, and Purchasing Methods

Jacqui Hendriks — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey examines print and device management adoption, benefits, and purchasing methods across European organizations, based on IDC’s European B2B Print Opportunity Survey, conducted in April 2026 among 2,057 respondents. The analysis focuses on current and planned adoption of print management and device management solutions (PMS/DMS), the benefits organizations derive from these solutions, and the ways they are purchased.

This survey covers adoption by country, company size, and industry sector; the relative importance of benefits such as cost reduction, security, and reduced IT burden; and purchasing behavior, including pricing models and managed print services (MPS) agreements.

Rapid Evolution and the Emergence of the AI MFP

Robert Palmer — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation provides insights into the key market dynamics and competitive pressures driving a new era of innovation in office printing hardware. The presentation highlights key trends driving the emergence of a new class of office printing hardware called the AI MFP, which builds on the capabilities of embedded AI technologies. In addition to laying the groundwork for maximizing competitive differentiation, this presentation offers advice to suppliers on how to navigate through the next phase of “rapid evolution” within the office printing market.