Ericsson has new tie-ups with system integrators Future Technologies and NTT Data to combine private 5G and physical AI in Industry 4.0. Ericsson appears to be picking up where Nokia has dropped off; Future Technologies is growing 35% per year.
In sum – what to know:
Channel deals – Ericsson has “expanded” partnerships with system integrators Future Technologies and NTT Data, both long-time partners (tight and loose) with rival Nokia, now quitting the scene.
Industrial AI – The new arrangements are focused on ‘physical AI’ – as popularised by Nvidia, and as pursued for some years already by private 5G vendors in industrial enterprise markets.
Growth market – Discussion at MWC said private 5G is strategically critical for telecoms, and also a growth market, albeit a fragmented and complex one; Future Technologies claims good successes.
Interesting channel news in the private 5G space, courtesy of Ericsson – notable as well, given the perceived tumult in the market after arch rival Nokia’s move late last year to put its private 5G (campus) business up for sale. The point is – per discussions on the show floor at MWC, and elsewhere, plus the continuing activity in the space – that the private 5G market is still gearing up, quite confident, genuinely hopeful. It is also increasingly strategic, of course; all the trendy talk about ‘physical AI’ – a kind of umbrella term popularised by Nvidia for AI systems that somehow anthropomorphise robots and drones, and all the other IoT-underpinnings of Industry 4.0 (as put to work on private 5G networks for some years) – has focused minds on edge connectivity in enterprise venues.
All of which makes Nokia’s decision even more perverse – but now we are editorialising. So what’s new? Well, Ericsson is expanding and extending its go-to-market partnerships in the private 5G space. Yesterday (March 10), US-based system integrator Future Technologies, a long-time Nokia favourite, said it is working more closely with the Swedish firm to scale private 5G for industrial AI. It was the same kind of message last month, when Ericsson announced a tie-up with (global) integrator NTT Data – to “accelerate adoption of private 5G and unlock advanced edge AI and physical AI use cases”. NTT Data, by the way, has always been closest with Celona, working more tactically with both Nokia (a weird unspoken channel arrangement), and also with Ericsson until now.
But wait; wasn’t industrial AI always the driver for this? Or the driver, at least, for industrial efficiency and productivity – as animated by AI, instrumented by IoT, connected by 5G? The difference with Ericsson’s “expanded” deals with Future Technologies and NTT Data, regional and global, is more about the shifting focus – for both the AI industry and the 5G industry, as well as for enterprises, whether asking about shiny tech or smart solutions. On the one hand, the AI market has to put AI to work, finally, which means lots of edge-based physical AI in the industrial economy, which contributes about a quarter of total global GDP, as well as in enterprise offices in the tightly-integrated services economy, which makes up the rest. Which means better connectivity in buildings and campuses.
Which means private 5G and Wi-Fi, among other things. On the other hand, the private 5G market has a chance to reframe its sales pitch – to go more directly after the kinds of physical AI cases it has always talked about, and sometimes, amid lots of straighter coverage, actually delivered. There is a case that Future Technologies, for one, has been effectively selling ‘physical AI’ for ages – although, like any good enterprise sales operation, it would bridle at the idea it is just selling technology, AI or 5G. But there is a division between the marketing, about shiny tech, and the work on the ground, about solving problems. Future Technologies has a mobile studio, which goes on the road (‘lab on wheels’), filled with robotics, variously connected, geared for problem solving in Industry 4.0.
Physical AI is a buzzword, but a useful one, signposted by Jenson Huang at Nvidia, Mister AI himself – so the whole global economy has pricked up its ears. For its part, Future Technologies hints at how new AI sense-making tech plays with the old IoT sensing game, and into the developing 5G discipline in between. It talks about the opportunity to “bridge the AI connectivity gap” in “critical North American industries” – which tells, at once, how starkly AI exposes inherent coverage challenges in Industry 4.0, and also how “critical” industries want campus networks (NB: Nokia). It has a slide (see below), which proposes that on-prem 5G and IoT are adjacent to the new trillion-dollar industries that have grown up around AI data-centre power and compute.
It explains: “Industrial environments are experiencing rapid growth in connected devices, including sensors, cameras, autonomous systems, vehicles, and mobile workers generating operational data that powers AI-driven automation and decision-making. This shift is creating a growing gap between AI compute capacity and the enterprise networks designed to support it. Many traditional enterprise connectivity architectures were not built to deliver the scale, reliability, and real-time performance required for modern AI-enabled operations. To address these requirements, organizations are increasingly deploying cellular technologies, including private 5G and enterprise wireless WAN (WWAN; Wi-Fi), to provide secure, deterministic connectivity across complex operational environments.”
Interestingly, its ‘physical AI’ messaging with Ericsson is a little different to NTT Data’s, from a month ago; the latter does not mention Wi-Fi in its press note, say, nor make reference to “critical” industry – although these, plus in-house IoT and compute, are central to its enterprise proposition. Future Technologies, meanwhile, has been working with Ericsson for 13 years, it says; they have “more than $150 million in cumulative joint engagement value”, apparently, across “public cellular modernization, private cellular deployments, industrial wireless WAN initiatives, and large-scale enterprise connectivity transformation”. Still the Georgia firm has been a Nokia stalwart since private 5G was private 4G, and before, and it is hard not to see its expansion with Ericsson in the light of Nokia’s flip-flopping.
Note, RCR was in conversation about private networks (etc) at MWC with Ericsson last week, and has a call with Future Technologies next week; so more coverage will come. Anecdotally, both conversations (did and will) say that the private 5G market is in good shape, as above; it was the same message yesterday (March 10) from Verizon Business and last month from Vodafone Business, just for further context. Future Technologies completed a strategic recapitalization with private equity firm Battle Investment Group late last year (2025), and set a target to be the “biggest” private 5G provider in North America within 12 months – including, it said at the time, by making an acquisition or two by the end of 2025. (RCR will check its notes, and ask next week.)
It has a roster of big ‘campus’ wins – including, historically, with the US military, which (for the record) gets lumped into Nokia’s screwy non-campus definition of ‘critical’ private networks. Which is by-the-by; the company claimed $50m of new private 5G contracts with the Department of Defense (mostly with Nokia) in September, and another (?) $50m in May, on the back of $20 million in various other industrial venues in February. (There was a big million-dollar count-up in the US utility space, as well – RCR thinks, but can’t find the reference in the archive.) Peter Cappiello, chief executive at the firm, told RCR Wireless its annual revenue growth was 25 percent in 2024 (versus 2023), rising to 35 percent in 2025. It has a target to increase its “company size” by four to five times by 2030, via organic and inorganic growth .
Cappiello said of the Ericsson deal: “Connectivity transformation is not simply about upgrading networks, it is about enabling AI modernization across industrial environments. Ericsson has been a foundational technology partner for more than 13 years. Together we are scaling deterministic enterprise wireless as a utility layer supporting modern infrastructure across North America.”
Åsa Tamsons, senior vice president and head of enterprise wireless solutions at Ericsson, commented: “AI is moving into the physical world, and that fundamentally changes the role connectivity plays inside enterprises. Enterprise wireless is becoming foundational infrastructure for AI-driven operations. Our collaboration with Future Technologies strengthens Ericsson’s ability to help organizations deploy the networks required to power the next generation of industrial innovation.”
