Edge data center firm Armada has launched a new rugged device for oil rigs.

The company this week announced a strategic collaboration with NOV to deliver AI-driven use cases at the Edge.

Armada is partnering with NOV to launch Beacon, a compact Edge device integrated with the Armada Edge Platform (AEP) and physically deployed at industrial sites.

The companies said Beacon brings ruggedized Edge computing to remote, space-constrained environments like offshore rigs and well sites.

Designed to complement Armada’s larger Galleon pods, Beacon will enable customers to process sensor, video, and control data close to the source. The Edge device will be equipped with NOV’s Max software offering.

“Beacon runs Armada Edge Platform and operates alongside larger Galleons, giving operators a flexible path to deploy AI and industrial workloads at the Edge. Start with Beacon for smaller, targeted use cases and then scale into a spoke and hub model using Cruiser or Triton for heavier workloads,” Armada said.

Beacon is now available as a turnkey solution via the Armada Marketplace.

"Our mission is to bring intelligence to the Edge where it matters most, which is close to the assets and operations," said Pradeep Nair, founding CTO of Armada. "By combining Armada's platform and AI orchestration capabilities with NOV's proven Edge infrastructure, we're unlocking business value in real time by reducing downtime, improving safety, and optimizing performance."

NOV provides services to design, manufacture, and provide equipment and components used in energy and industrial markets.

"Edge AI is transforming industrial operations," said Renju Jose Kuruvila, president, NOV Digital & IntelliServ. "Our collaboration with Armada allows us to accelerate this transformation for our customers by putting actionable intelligence in the field, right at the edge, where decisions need to be made."

Armada is a developer of containerized Edge data centers. It recently expanded into the AI data center space, launching an AI data center offering dubbed Leviathan in July of this year, following a $131 million funding round.

So far in 2025, Armada has deployed its Edge containerized data centers with Tampnet for offshore oil rigs, the US Navy in South Carolina, Aramco in Saudi Arabia, and Newlab in Detroit and Riyadh. It is due to deploy pods with UnityCloud in partnership with tribal nations across the US.

In July 2024, Microsoft's M12 led another funding round for Armada, which raised $40 million. At the time, the company said this brought its total funding to more than $100 million.

The company also has a new software product known as Bridge that allows companies to turn their GPUs into a GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) offering.