StonesThro, in partnership with Cornerstone, announced the successful execution of a groundbreaking Proof of Concept (POC) for micro-Edge computing.
By building and deploying high-performance data centre technology directly into challenging, external infrastructure environments, the partnership has proven that the future of the UK’s digital economy lies at the edge. The trials, conducted across sites in Southampton, Solihull, and Milton Keynes, have demonstrated that distributed architectures can deliver sub-10ms latency, essential for many IOT applications such as drone and autonomous vehicle technology, while significantly reducing the carbon footprint of AI and data processing.
The collaboration leverages a unique sector defining synergy. Stonesthro provides the Edge cloud expertise and bespoke hardware/software combination, while Cornerstone provides the ubiquitous national infrastructure. With a portfolio of 16,000 sites across the UK, Cornerstone offers the pace, power, cooling, and security typically reserved for massive, centralised data centres but because of this POC those capabilities can now be distributed locally.
“We have successfully moved from planning and design to tangible reality,” said Gregg Mearing, CTO of Stonesthro. “This POC proves that it is entirely possible to take the compute power usually locked away in massive warehouses and deploy it in the regions where it is actually needed and can make a noticeable, societal difference. It’s about making the cloud local, sovereign, and sustainable.”
The POC involved rigorous testing by pioneering UK SMEs, including Fabstir, Motion Dynamics, and Lupovis. The results were definitive in 3 areas:
- Speed of Deployment: In a standout achievement, Fabstir moved from an initial engagement to full deployment and a customer demonstration in less than a week, setting a new benchmark for Edge speed and agility
- Performance: The platform successfully managed thermally intensive AI-GPU workloads and distributed architectures, maintaining sub-10ms latency – a critical requirement for next-generation applications. Low latency is essential for Motion dynamics processing while intensive AI is essential for Fabstir
- Capacity: The tech stack, powered by suppliers including Cisco, Zadara, ZaveIT, Fortinet, and Neos, delivered robust storage, GPU capabilities, and several hundred virtual machines, all protected by Cyber Essentials+ and ISO9001 standards. GPU is essential for Motion dynamics and Fabstir while cyber security is important for Lupovis who’s core business is cyber defence
“A core objective of our mission is to address the AI power requirement challenge. Traditional data centres are often clustered south of Watford, requiring massive power transmission from the North of the UK,” continued Mearing.
“The National Grid consumes approximately 8% of all power generated just by moving it across the country. By moving compute to the micro-Edge and the regions closer to where power is generated, we can eliminate that transmission waste. Furthermore, our partnership uses existing infrastructure and more efficient cooling processes, avoiding the carbon cost of laying new cables for ‘Big Data’ centres,” concluded Mearing.
With the POC deemed a significant success, Cornerstone and Stonesthro are entering advanced deployment mode for the next 10 to 20 sites. With a vision to scale across a thousand sites nationally, the partnership is poised to provide a cost-neutral, high-performance alternative to traditional cloud and on-premise solutions.
By combining the 20-year global experience of companies like Zadara with Stonesthro’s nimble, sovereign approach, the UK now has a viable pathway to a genuine, distributed, green and secure digital future.
