Kyndryl has announced an edge computing partnership with Nokia that aims to tap into the lucrative smart factory market.
The two companies are joining forces to provide infrastructure and wireless networking services to accelerate the adoption of cloud and artificial intelligence across manufacturing.
By implementing private wireless networking, Kyndryl and Nokia want to enable their customers to reach "new levels" of operational flexibility across a wide range of "asset-intensive" industries. Both firms see it as a lucrative market to tap into, with an expected $510 billion to be had by 2025.
The plans centre around a shared vision that private wireless networking, over both LTE and 5G, will boost factory digital transformation. It builds upon a previous collaboration between the companies where Nokia had added its Digital Automation Cloud platform to Kyndryl's services for consultancy, design, and infrastructure management. That was aimed at transforming how companies manufacture and distribute their products with IoT, cloud, and AI.
With this LTE and 5G collaboration, both firms say they are addressing opportunities in a marketplace that already has a strong industrial ecosystem built on LTE, which has helped to pave a way for "significant 5G enhancements".
"By combining Kyndryl's world-class services expertise and global reach with Nokia's mission-critical, industry-leading private wireless and industrial edge computing solutions, we will enable even more organisations to transform their operations, accelerate their digitalisation journey and reap the benefits of Industry 4.0," said Chris Johnson, head of the Global Enterprise Business at Nokia.
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The partnership will also to explore and develop integrated services for edge cloud, IP networking, and network operations software to address a growing demand for "mission-critical, industrial-grade wireless networking".
"By collaborating with Nokia, we're taking another step forward in helping our customers unlock the power of LTE and 5G through a secure, private environment that helps them deliver tailored enterprise-grade edge solutions that drive new value for their bottom lines and next-gen customer experiences," Kyndryl's global practice leader, Paul Savill said.
