Kyndryl and Nokia announce edge computing partnership

Multinational telecommunication company Nokia, and Kyndryl, an IT infrastructure provider, have announced a global network and edge computing alliance aimed at helping enterprise customers accelerate their digital transformations with industrial-grade reliable and secure LTE and 5G private wireless networking.

Both of the companies share a vision that private wireless networking over both LTE and 5G will enable new levels of operational flexibility and adaptability across a wide range of asset-intensive industries, with manufacturing as a primary market segment.

Chris Johnson, Head of the Global Enterprise Business at Nokia, said: “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.”

Helping customers unlock the power of technology 

The collaboration has already resulted in private LTE and 5G real-world deployments and several proof-of-concept (PoC) applications for Dow Inc. to support Industry 4.0-enabled worker safety and collaboration, asset tracking, and other capabilities using a blueprint that it plans to expand and deploy across its sites worldwide.

“As enterprises across every industry are seeking new ways to digitally transform their operations, 5G and edge computing are growing so they can harness the promise of these emerging technologies,” said Paul Savill, global practice leader of Network and Edge computing for Kyndryl. “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.”

Building on the benefits of digitisation and automation 

Kyndryl and Nokia also plan to explore and develop new, integrated solutions and services for Edge Cloud, IP networking, Optics, Fixed Access, 4G and 5G Core and Network Operations software technologies that can address the growing demand for mission-critical, industrial-grade wireless networking to capitalise on the transformational benefits of digitisation and automation.

The partnership builds on a successful private wireless connectivity project that yielded an innovative solution combining Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) application platform with Kyndryl’s consulting, design, implementation and managed services. The solution is designed to support the move to Industry 4.0, which is transforming how companies manufacture and distribute their products by interacting with IoT, cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and other advances to their environments and operations.