Zettabyte and LiteOn Announce Strategic R&D Collaboration on Micro Edge AI Inferencing Infrastructure
PALO ALTO, Calif. and TAIPEI, Feb. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Zettabyte and LiteOn today announced a R&D collaboration to evaluate a distributed edge AI inferencing platform deployed at cell tower or tower-adjacent locations called the Ultra Edge Pod.
The initial deployment will consist of specialized Mobile Edge Compute (MEC) AI inferencing platform deployed at cell towers, tower-adjacent facilities, and other network-proximate infrastructure (Edge AI Deployment). MEC will bring AI inference workloads closer to users and dramatically reduce latency. MEC platforms will help countries without mature data centre infrastructure achieve digital and AI readiness for its citizens and enterprises. Under the collaboration, LiteOn will provide the power, cooling, and physical infrastructure required for edge deployments, while Zettabyte will deliver the comprehensive software layer responsible for GPU scheduling, orchestration, observability, and remote operations, delivering MEC by combining the computing power of all cell towers.
The deployment is intended to demonstrate how tightly integrated infrastructure and software can enable reliable, low cost and low-latency AI inference in highly distributed environments, including telecom-adjacent sites with real-world power, thermal, and operational constraints.
The intended Edge AI Deployment will support low-latency, location-aware AI inference workloads operating closer to mobile users, radio access networks, and data sources, and validating the feasibility of operating GPU-based AI computing within highly distributed, power-and-space constrained telecommunication scenarios, including those operated by tower companies and telecommunications providers
"This deployment allows both teams to validate a practical and scalable model for edge AI deployment, emphasizing repeatability, resilience, and operational efficiency through a clear separation of infrastructure and software responsibilities," says Kenneth Tai, chairman of Zettabyte.
"LiteOn's experience in power systems, thermal management, and physical infrastructure positions the company to support emerging edge AI use cases through disciplined, deployment-driven collaboration," says Jason Tsao, Associate Vice President and Head of Direct Current Microgrid at LITEON
About Zettabyte
Zettabyte is a global provider of AI infrastructure software focused on GPU scheduling, orchestration, and operations for distributed and heterogeneous compute environments.
About LiteOn
Lite-On Technology Corp [2301.TW] is a global technology company specializing in power systems, thermal management, and infrastructure solutions for telecom, industrial, and data-centre-adjacent deployments.
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