IBM and Verizon Business Collaborate on 5G and AI Edge Computing Innovation

Updated on 9th October 2020,10:30am UTC 

Tech giant IBM is collaborating with Verizon Business to help usher in the future of Industry 4.0 through their respective expertise on edge computing innovation and 5G technology.

Verizon Business and IBM today announced they are entering into a collaboration to work together on 5G and edge computing innovation to help enable the future of Industry 4.0.

IBM and Verizon plan to combine the high speed and low latency of Verizon’s 5G and Multi-access edge compute (MEC) capabilities, IoT devices and sensors at the edge, and IBM’s expertise in AI, hybrid multicloud, edge computing, asset management and connected operations.

Unlock Industry 4.0 to Enhance Enterprise Efficiency

According to the release shared with Blockchain.News, many industrial enterprises are today seeking ways to use edge computing to accelerate access to near real-time, actionable insights into operations to improve productivity and reduce costs.

To address this need, the first solutions planned from this collaboration will be mobile asset tracking and management solutions to help enterprises improve operations, optimize production quality, and help clients enhance worker safety.

Edge computing is a networking philosophy focused on bringing computing as close to the source of data as possible in order to reduce latency and bandwidth use. In simpler terms, edge computing means running fewer processes in the cloud and moving those processes to local places, such as on a user’s computer, an IoT device, or an edge server. Bringing computation to the network’s edge minimizes the amount of long-distance communication that has to happen between a client and a server.

For these initial solutions, the two companies plan to leverage Verizon’s wireless networks, including Verizon’s 5G Ultra-Wideband network, and Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) capabilities, alongside Verizon’s ThingSpace IoT Platform and Critical Asset Sensor solution (CAS). These will be jointly offered with IBM’s market-leading Maximo Monitor with IBM Watson and advanced analytics. The combined solutions could help clients detect, locate, diagnose and respond to system anomalies, monitor asset health, and help predict failures in near real-time.

“This collaboration is all about enabling the future of industry in the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” said Tami Erwin, CEO, Verizon Business. “Combining the high speed and low latency of Verizon’s 5G UWB Network and MEC capabilities with IBM’s expertise in enterprise-grade AI and production automation can provide industrial innovation on a massive scale and can help companies increase automation, minimize waste, lower costs, and offer their own clients a better response time and customer experience.”

Bringing the Edge to Enterprises

According to the release, IBM and Verizon are also working on potential combined solutions for 5G and MEC-enabled use cases such as near real-time cognitive automation for the industrial environment.

Edge computing’s decentralized architecture brings technology resources closer to where data is generated - i.e., where devices are located in an industrial site – this can help decrease lags in response time and increase processing speeds and reliability. 5G’s low latency, high download speeds, and capacity can increase the number of devices that can be supported within the same geographic area, and the ability for organizations to interact with those devices in near real-time, with computing power in the proximity of the device. This could mean that innovative new applications such as remote-control robotics, near real-time cognitive video analysis, and plant automation may now be possible.

“The industrial sector is undergoing an unprecedented transformation as companies begin to return to full-scale operations, aided by new technology to help reduce costs and increase productivity,” said Bob Lord, Senior Vice President, Cognitive Applications, Blockchain, and Ecosystems, IBM. “Through this collaboration, we plan to build upon our longstanding relationship with Verizon to help industrial enterprises capitalize on joint solutions that are designed to be multicloud ready, secured and scalable, from the data center all the way out to the enterprise edge.”

Verizon and IBM have also announced plans to collaborate on potential joint solutions to address Verizon to address worker safety, predictive maintenance, product quality and production automation.

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