Edge computing offers many technical advantages, e.g., reduced latency, secure decentralized processing and storage, scalability at lower complexity, versatility to adapt the changes in resources and applications, and increased reliability. Edge computing can dramatically boost services and applications by supporting artificial intelligence (AI) natively, instead of relying on the cloud. Edge computing supporting AI is the only technology that will enable many of the long-awaited game changers: Industry4.0 and smart manufacturing, 5G, IoT, self-driving vehicles, remote robotics for healthcare, and machine vision among others. The BRAINE project’s overall aim is to boost the development of the Edge framework focusing on energy efficient hardware and AI empowered software, capable of processing Big Data at the Edge, supporting security, data privacy, and sovereignty. The approach is to build a seamless Edge MicroDataCenter interlinked with AI enabled network interface cards. BRAINE employs a visionary utilization method for edge resources management and network-edge workload distribution. Predicting resource availability and workload demand, identifying trends, and taking proactive actions are all aspects of these novel methods. The impact of BRAINE encompasses advances in the European video distribution ecosystem, improving data processing at the network edge, and proving integrated AI for applications. These will lead to unprecedented savings in performance and energy efficiency: 2x performance/Watt and 50% energy savings; 71% latency reduction for an acceleration centric EMDC; 80% space and maintenance reduction, 99.999% fault tolerance with level 5 autonomy (autonomous driving, robotics, mission-critical system); and significantly faster infrastructure installation and deployment. BRAINE boosts EU’s position in the intelligent edge computing field and enables growth across many sectors, e.g., manufacturing, smart healthcare, surveillance, satellite navigation.