Airtel and Nokia join hands for Industry 4.0 enterprise applications

Mobile network service provider Airtel has partnered with telecom networking gear maker Nokia to provide Industry 4.0 applications for enterprises. Industry 4.0 refers to the automation and deployment of emerging technologies such as cloud and analytics.

According to a statement from the companies, industrial-grade 4G or LTE private wireless solutions will enable industrial automation for enterprises in the financial, information technology, media, manufacturing and logistics sectors. The partnership will also explore 5G use-cases for the enterprise segment, it said.

The companies will deploy technologies such as cloud, internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and edge computing to develop enterprise solutions, the statement said.

The deployment will focus on digitisation, predictive and prescriptive analytics, and robotics connected through low latency and secure LTE technology to maximise efficiency and productivity, the company said.

“Our ambition is to be a key enabler of digital transformation of businesses and with our future-ready connectivity platforms and ecosystem of partners, to serve this massive demand,” Ashish Arora, CEO of enterprise business at Airtel Business, said.

The LTE technology has, over time, evolved to provide reliable, secure and high-capacity connectivity for industrial applications and digitalisation, it said. 

Gurugram-based Airtel serves over 2,500 large businesses and over 5,00,000 small and medium businesses (SMBs) and technology startups in India. It said that Industry 4.0 relies on low-latency, high-reliability networks to drive new levels of automation and data exchange in manufacturing industries, resulting in improved operational efficiency and reduced costs.

The partnership will enable private wireless portfolio with intrinsic security, mission-critical reliability and vast coverage to meet the growing demand for a network that can support a high volume of data with low latency along with wide range telecom portfolio for Airtel, the company said. Nokia will contribute with its end-to-end portfolio and industry expertise with over 120 private wireless customers across industries globally. The companies had also set up a telecommunication equipment factory in Chennai early last month.

Late last year, Nokia partnered with Microsoft to enable the latter's cloud solutions to work with Nokia’s LTE/5G-ready private wireless solutions, IP, SD-WAN and IoT connectivity offerings. 

Nokia has also been working on India-specific solutions, the company's CTO Randeep Raina told TechCircle in a video interview. 

Last year, Airtel and Chinese telecommunications equipment major Huawei completed deployment of the 5G MIMO microwave networking technology in India.