Nokia and Kyndryl announced a global network and edgecomputing alliance aimed at helpingenterprisecustomersacceleratetheir digital transformations withindustrial-grade reliable and secure LTE and 5G privatewireless networking.

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, implementationand 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.

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.

Kyndryl and Nokia 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 primarymarket segment.

“As enterprises across every industry are seeking new ways to digitally transform their operations, 5G and edgecomputing 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 stepforward in helping our customers unlock the power of LTE and 5G through a secure, private environment that helpsthem deliver tailored enterprise-grade edge solutions that drive new value for their bottom lines and next gen customerexperiences.”

By collaborating to provide solutions over LTE and 5G standards, Kyndryl and Nokia are addressing the marketplace opportunities that already utilize the strong industrial ecosystem available now with LTE, while paving the way for significant 5G enhancements in future 3GPP releases, with existing Nokia DAC 5G stand alone-ready private wirelesssolutions.

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 edgecomputing solutions, we will enable even more organizations to transform their operations, accelerate their digitalizationjourney and reap the benefits of Industry 4.0.”

Nokia DAC is a digitization service platform featuring high-performance, industrial-grade private wireless connectivityand edge computing, strengthening the company’s global footprint, industry expertise and end-to-end customersolutions – from ideation to implementation and management.

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 addressgrowing demand for mission-critical, industrial-grade wireless networking to capitalize on the transformational benefitsof digitization and automation.

Asset-intensive industries are adopting smart and autonomous systems fueled by data and machine learning to improve agility, productivity and efficiency. In particular, private wireless connectivity is a key enabler to adding new data sources and analytics layers, for real-time process management, and to facilitate automation, robotics, AI, augmented and virtual reality use cases.