Samsung and IBM are to collaborate on on-premise industrial 5G and edge computing to drive the Industry 4.0 market, they have said. The pair want to combine their expertise in private 5G networks and edge computing, in the shape of Samsung’s 5G smartphones and 5G networking gear and IBM’s hybrid computing and analytics solutions.
The pair will develop “open, hybrid cloud solutions” for enterprises to draw data insights closer to their operations – everywhere from “the factory floor to an oil rig or a regular office space,” they said. Their objective, as per the Industry 4.0 credo, is to help to “improve operational performance, increase worker safety, and minimize downtime”.
They will “explore how manufacturers can use” private LTE and 5G networks for industrial IoT, and how they can also be combined with public LTE and 5G networks. They will collaborate with mobile operators, too, they said.
A statement said: “Collaboration on private 5G will [enable] enterprises to adopt emerging [Industry 4.0] technologies, such as IoT, AI, cloud and edge computing, and AR. [It will] introduce new innovations across that can enable employees to identify faults in manufacturing lines using AI-powered image recognition, use thousands of sensors to build smart agriculture solutions, or facilitate employee training and productivity using AR.”
Samsung and IBM, together with IBM’s open-source software unit Red Hat, are to look specifically at interoperability and integration of Samsung hardware and software with IBM’s ‘edge application manager’, which runs on Red Hat OpenShift, and AI. The idea is to enable computing workloads to be deployed to smartphones “at an industrial scale”, they said.
KC Choi, executive vice president and head of global mobile B2B within Samsung’s mobile communications business, said: “The move to standalone 5G has accelerated the adoption of industrial IoT solutions and will require businesses to adopt an edge computing strategy that allows them to manage their IT environments from anywhere… Our unique devices, mobile IoT and network solutions can provide frontline workers with access to better data and more actionable insights to take their business to the next level.”
Steve Canepa, global general manager and managing director of IBM’s comms sector unit, said: “The transition of communication networks from proprietary architecture to intelligent, software-defined hybrid cloud platforms enables the creation of enormous new value in the 5G and edge era. 5G devices and network solutions… [and] open, hybrid cloud capabilities can help organizations accelerate their transformation… while unlocking the true power of 5G and edge.”
