Distributed cloud/edge (DCE) platform has become popular in recent years. This paper proposes a new AI benchmark suite for assessing the performance of DCE platforms in machine learning (ML) and cognitive science applications. The benchmark suite is custom-designed to satisfy scenario-based performance requirements, namely the model training time, inference speed, model accuracy, job response time, quality of service, and system reliability. These metrics are substantiated by intensive experiments with real-life AI workloads. Our work is specially tailored for supporting massive AI multitasking across distributed resources in the networking environment. Our benchmark experiments were conducted on an AI-oriented AIRS cloud built at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. We have tested a large number of ML/DL programs to narrow down the inclusion of ten representative AI kernel codes in the benchmark suite. Our benchmark results reveal the advantages of using the DCE systems cost-effectively in smart cities, healthcare, community surveillance, and transportation services. Our technical contributions are in the AIRS cloud architecture, benchmark design, testing, and distributed AI computing requirements. Our work will benefit computer system designers and AI application developers on clouds, edge, and mobile devices, that are supported by 5G mobile networks and AIoT resources.

Distributed cloud/edge resources are needed to execute pervasive artificial intelligence tasks, collectively. The AI workload and data sets have variable multitasking granularity, privacy constraints, and communication latency concerns. This article presents a novelfederated cloud/edge(FCE)framework, illustrated by distributed medical image processing across multiple hospital sites. This federated cloud system appeals to train many machine learning models efficiently with workload balancing and reduced communication overheads. We tested the FCE model on a multi-cloud platform recently built at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Shenzhen. We claim three distinct advantages in using the FCE system. First, our federated cloud system results in 41.3% reduction in total AI processing time in large-scale ML/DL experiments. Second, high machine model accuracy was achieved at 87% level in telemedicine experiments. The virtual graph helps reduce internode traffic latencies to avoid ML inference slowdowns. Third, the system can tolerate multiple cloud failures to enter a graceful degradation mode in case of node failures. The scalable performance gains in AI processing speed, model accuracy, and fault tolerance make our federated clouds a truly viable approach to solving massive AI multitasking problems in pervasive AI applications.