A system and method for providing object recognition using artificial neural networks. The method includes capturing a plurality of reference images with a camera associated with an edge node on a communication network. The reference images are received by a centralized server on the communication network. The reference images are analyzed with a parent neural network of the centralized server to determine a subset of objects identified by the parent neural network in the reference images. One or more filters that are responsive to the subset of objects are selected from the parent neural network. A pruned neural network is created from only the one or more filters. The pruned neural network is deployed to the edge node. Real-time images are captured with the camera of the edge node and objects in the real-time images are identified with the pruned neural network.