"Your Own Private Cloud..."
Sea to Sky innovator takes communication industry by storm
Sea to Sky resident Rahul Narsimhan is the CEO of a company called HiveRadar, the producer of a new communication device that aims to revolutionize communication systems in Canada and around the world.
While Narsimhan's company is headquartered in Toronto, he says he is proud to live in the neighbourhood "where the legend of Happy Gilmore was born", and earlier this fall agreed to sit down with The Watershed to talk about his portable data centre.
Watershed: Can you give us a brief explanation of what this product is and what it does?
Rahul Narsimhan: This is a portable Edge Data Center, or EDC.
To explain it in non-technical terms, think about what happens when you use email, visit a website, stream a video or use an online business application. Most of those services are running somewhere in a large data centre operated by companies such as Google, Microsoft or Amazon.
What we have done is essentially take the core idea of a data centre and shrink it down into something that can be transported and deployed almost anywhere.
It can run important applications and services locally, with or without an Internet connection. For example, imagine a remote community or school where Internet connectivity is unreliable or unavailable. The EDC could provide an entire digital learning environment locally.
We recently demonstrated this in Anaheim, California, with an offline version of Wikipedia, using Khan Academy educational content. The material covered subjects such as math and physics, student and teacher assignments, and local AI capabilities. Students and teachers from the Khan Academy could access the information and ask questions without needing to be connected to the Internet.
WS: You keep saying "with or without the Internet." What does that actually mean?
RN: Today, many organizations depend completely on the cloud.
If your payroll system, customer database, medical applications or other critical systems are hosted in the cloud, losing your Internet connection can bring your operations to a stop. Our approach is different.
The EDC can run those critical applications locally. So if the Internet goes down, your local network and applications can continue operating.
Think of it like having your own small private cloud sitting right beside you.
It also provides built-in Wi-Fi and high-speed wired networking so a team can continue working locally. When Internet connectivity is available, the system can connect through 5G cellular or Starlink and synchronize information with the outside world.
That makes it particularly useful in remote locations, during emergencies, or anywhere reliable connectivity cannot be guaranteed.
WS: That's a very rugged case. When I see something like this, I immediately think of the military or emergency response teams. Is that your target market?
RN: Those are certainly important markets. Historically, portable data centres like this have primarily been designed for defence, emergency response and other specialized applications.
What we wanted to do was take that same concept and make it accessible to a much broader market.
Our approach is what is called a dual-use architecture. In simple terms, that means the same technology can be used by both defence and civilian organizations.
A remote mine, hospital, school, retail chain, construction site or emergency response team could all have a reason to deploy this piece of equipment.
The key to making that possible is using commercially available technology (COTS) rather than building everything from expensive, proprietary components.
WS: What is COTS hardware?
RN: COTS stands for Commercial Off-The-Shelf hardware.
Think about your smartphone. You don't need a special government-built phone to get access to the latest processors, cameras or communications technology. You buy commercially available technology and put it to work.
We take a similar approach. A lot of traditional specialized systems use proprietary hardware and software. That can make them extremely capable, but also very expensive and difficult to scale.
Meanwhile, the commercial technology available today is advancing incredibly quickly. The latest processors, AI chips, networking equipment and mini computers are all coming from the commercial market.
Our philosophy is simple: why reinvent the wheel when you can use the best commercially available technology and build a purpose-designed system around it?
It allows us to create a capable portable data centre at a price point that makes sense not just for defence, but for civilian and commercial applications as well.
WS: With the current unpredictability of US tariffs, can you still find a market for your product outside of Canada?
RN: It is definitely an interesting time to be a Canadian technology company.
Historically, the United States has been our largest market. Our wireless engineering products are already used by engineers at many Fortune 1000 companies, including organizations such as Cisco, AstraZeneca, NVIDIA, AT&T and Verizon, as well as the U.S. Air Force.
The Portable Edge Data Center is a newer product for us. We launched it in March of this year, and we are now taking it to the international market.
We know the U.S. market will be important, but we are also deliberately building a global footprint.
The Canadian government has been very helpful in that process. The Trade Commissioner Service has helped us identify and connect with potential distributors, resellers and customers and has supported us at international trade shows and through Canadian trade missions. We now have partners and relationships developing in countries including Chile, the UK, Germany and South Africa.
As a relatively small Canadian technology company, those are doors that would have been much harder for us to open on our own.
WS: Anything else you'd like to share? And where can people learn more?
RN: We regularly post about our products, demonstrations and international events on LinkedIn, and people can directly connect with me there.
We are a Canadian technology company building products that we hope can make advanced technology more accessible, whether that is for a remote community, a business, an emergency response team or a customer halfway around the world.
Learn more at hiveradar.com.
Editor's note: This new feature profiles local small businesses that might be of interest to readers in Lions Bay and throughout the Sea to Sky region. If you know a small business that might fit the bill, contact editor@lionsbaywatershed.ca
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