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Tech companies team to scale private 5G and physical AI
NTT Data and Ericsson aim to deliver proven private 5G, edge AI and physical AI use cases across sectors like smart cities, transportation and energy.
At a glance
Who: NTT Data; Ericsson.
What: The tech companies have announced a multi-year partnership to accelerate enterprise adoption of private 5G and unlock advanced edge artificial intelligence (AI) and physical AI use cases.
Why: To help organisations deliver industry-ready solutions that deploy private 5G networks and deliver outcomes at a global scale with confidence.
When: Both organisations will be demonstrating their technology at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from 2-5 March.
Tech companies NTT Data and Ericsson announced a multi-year partnership to accelerate enterprise adoption of private 5G and unlock advanced edge artificial intelligence (AI) and physical AI use cases.
Among the priority areas is delivering proven private 5G, edge AI and physical AI use cases across smart cities, transportation and energy.
Intelligence at the edge
As organisations look to embed intelligence at the edge across global operations, the partnership will enable AI-driven, outcome-focused transformation.
By combining Ericsson’s private 5G and edge platforms with NTT Data’s full-stack enterprise network services, wireless network expertise, IT/OT security and managed services, the companies will deliver industry-ready solutions that help enterprises deploy private 5G networks and deliver business outcomes at a global scale with confidence.
The partnership will focus on four priority areas:
- Global private 5G managed services at scale: NTT Data will act as one of Ericsson’s key global system integration and managed services providers, delivering private 5G as a fully managed service with consistent architecture, operations and security worldwide
- AI embedded directly into enterprise connectivity: NTT Data Edge AI agents will run on Ericsson’s enterprise edge platforms, enabling real-time intelligence and autonomous decision-making where data is generated
- Repeatable industry solutions: the companies will be able to deliver proven private 5G, edge AI and physical AI use cases across manufacturing, mining, ports, airports, energy, transportation and smart cities, helping enterprises accelerate deployment and realise measurable return on investment (ROI)
- Unified global go-to-market: joint sales, marketing and delivery will give enterprises a single, consistent path to deployment, reduce vendor complexity and speed time to value.
“Private 5G is the backbone for scaling AI in production, where autonomous systems must operate reliably and at scale, but integration complexity often remains the final hurdle,” said Alejandro Cadenas, associate vice-president of Worldwide Telco Research at IDC.
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“The combined expertise of NTT Data and Ericsson seamlessly integrates edge AI and physical AI with enhanced connectivity, overcoming operational, scalability and accountability challenges and accelerating the deployment of AI with confidence.”
The partnership will initially focus on high-impact use cases across industries. This includes intelligent traffic management, public safety monitoring and real-time optimisation of energy and municipal services in smart cities and autonomous operations driven by real-time vehicle and asset data for dynamic routing, tracking and safety in transportation, ports and logistics.
“Private 5G is the backbone for scaling AI in production, where autonomous systems must operate reliably and at scale, but integration complexity often remains the final hurdle”
“As enterprises adopt AI at the edge, they need partners who can bring connectivity, intelligence and security together in a way that actually works in production,” said Shahid Ahmed, global head of Edge Services, NTT Data. “Together with Ericsson, we can deploy these solutions faster, operate them at scale and deliver outcomes. Private 5G gives enterprises the foundation they need to achieve real, measurable impact with edge AI and physical AI deployments.”
Åsa Tamsons, senior vice president and head of Business Area Enterprise Wireless Solutions, Ericsson “Ericsson has been advancing enterprise connectivity for over a decade. This extends that capability to support edge AI and physical AI at scale across industries.
“By combining our global platforms with NTT Data engineering and managed services, industry expertise and AI-driven operations, enterprises can move from experimentation to always-on, production-grade operations.”
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