Runhe Software releases an FDE white paper defining Echo, Delta and Dev roles for enterprise AI last-mile delivery

Chinese enterprise-software firm Jiangsu Runhe Software used the Fifth Global Digital Trade Expo in Hangzhou to release FDE: The Deployment Engineer of the AI Era, a white paper that frames Forward Deployed Engineers as the bridge between general-purpose models and production business value.

The paper argues that model capability is no longer the bottleneck: most enterprise AI projects stall at POC because business semantics, data governance, legacy integration and auditability are hard. It defines an FDE as an engineer who starts from a business problem, combines models, data, ontologies, agents and platform foundations into a runnable, auditable solution, measures outcomes, and feeds reusable industry patterns back into the product.

Instead of a single “super individual,” Runhe describes a three-role org: Echo (deployment strategist) picks which problems matter; Delta (frontline FDE) builds and iterates on site; Dev (platform engineer) turns field work into reusable platform assets. Case studies cover financial testing and development, healthcare and energy/power.

Chief AI scientist Xu Liyang said enterprise AI has shifted from “do we have a model?” to “can we produce real business value,” and cast FDEs as translators and value-realizers between AI and the business—not replacements for either.