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CDN

A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a geographically distributed network of servers that keeps copies of content close to end users, dramatically cutting load times. Instead of sending every request all the way to the origin server, possibly on the other side of the world, the CDN answers from the nearest point of presence.

Definition

How it works

CDN servers, called edge servers, cache static content: images, videos, scripts, pages. When a user in Milan requests a file, DNS routing points them to the Milan or Frankfurt node rather than the origin server in California. If the content is cached it is served instantly; otherwise the node fetches it from the origin and keeps it for subsequent requests.

Applications

In AI, CDNs distribute open source model weights (Hugging Face serves terabytes of models through delivery networks), speed up chatbot web interfaces and, with edge computing, host lightweight inference directly at points of presence. Beyond AI, video streaming, e-commerce and news sites live on CDNs.

History & etymology

The category emerged in the late 1990s to relieve web congestion: Akamai, founded in 1998 by MIT mathematician Tom Leighton with Danny Lewin, pioneered it by applying consistent hashing algorithms to route content. The acronym literally describes the function: a network for delivering content. Today operators like Cloudflare, Fastly and the big clouds' CDNs carry the majority of global internet traffic.

How it's used in Grace

Grace is a web platform you can reach from anywhere: the same global distribution logic that CDNs make possible. In the professional scenarios on digital products, correctly mentioning CDNs and edge in your conversation with the AI produces more concrete, relevant answers.

Related terms

• Caching
• Edge AI
• Load Balancer
• Latency
• Uptime and SLA

More in AI Fundamentals

• LLM (Large Language Model)
• Token
• Context Window
• Temperature
• AI Hallucination
• Fine-tuning
• RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation)
• Embedding

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