The 22-year-old from Beverley completed a comprehensive 6-1 6-3 win over Portugal's Gastao Elias to land a meeting with the second seed, who was granted a first-round bye.
Edmund went unbroken throughout his 65-minute workout but won against the serve twice in each set.
Dan Evans also made light work of his first-round clash against Dustin Brown to complete a 6-1 6-1 victory.
The British number three took just 53 minutes to see off the German and will now face Kei Nishikori in round two.
France's Benoit Paire suffered a surprise first-round exit after falling to a defeat against home favourite Taylor Fritz.
Fritz, from California, was buoyed by the Indian Wells crowd to complete a 6-3 6-2 victory over the world number 40.
The 19-year-old American - who is ranked 136th in the world despite rising to 53rd as recently as August - will face sixth seed Marin Cilic in round two.
Qualifier Henri Laaksonen also made it through to the second round with a 3-6 6-4 6-2 victory over Croatia's Borna Coric.
Switzerland's Laaksonen, ranked 123 in the world, took two hours and 10 minutes to beat the world number 59 to set up a clash with Jack Sock in the second round.
Tunisia's Malek Jaziri beat France's Nicolas Mahut 6-3 6-2 while Argentina's Guido Pella won a hard-fought clash against Spain's Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 4-6 7-5 6-2.
Mikhail Youzhny won the all-Russian contest against Daniil Medvedev 6-4 6-4 while Donald Young overcame fellow American Stefan Kozlov 7-5 7-6 (7/5).
There were also first-round wins for Jiri Vesely, Pierre-Hugues Herbert, Kevin Anderson, Stephane Robert, Jan-Lennard Struff, Federico Delbonis, Facundo Bagnis and Horacio Zeballos.
Meanwhile, Andy Murray warmed up for his second-round singles showdown with Vasek Pospisil on Saturday by progressing in the doubles alongside Evans.
Evans and Gilles Muller beat Murray and Nenad Zimonjic in the first round of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships last month but the British pair teamed up to good effect in California.
They survived a scare to win 6-3 1-6 1-0 (10/6) in a match tie-breaker against fifth-seeded Spanish duo Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez to reach the second round.
