As India prepares for 5G deployment, IBM and Bharti Airtel announced plans to deploy Airtel's edge computing platform in the country, which will include 120 network data centres spread across 20 cities.
To begin, the Airtel edge computing platform, which is supported by IBM Cloud Satellite, will power Maruti Suzuki's initiatives to improve plant productivity and quality.
"As India gears up to experience 5G, we see a massive opportunity to help businesses across industries transform how they deliver goods and services," stated Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, CEO-Enterprise, Airtel Business.
"We have the largest network of edge data centres available in India under the Nxtra brand and we will leverage our work with IBM to help Indian businesses address their critical business needs with greater efficiency," he continued.
Once deployed, the platform is intended to enable large enterprises in a variety of industries, including manufacturing and automotive, to accelerate innovative solutions that add new value to their clients and operations while remaining secure at the edge. In India, 5G has the potential to generate a $1 trillion economic impact by 2035.
According to Howard Boville, IBM Cloud Platform Head, collaborating with Airtel to bring IBM's hybrid cloud offerings to their Indian multi-access edge compute customers "will help them embrace the opportunities presented by 5G and edge, such as innovating with greater speed and security."
Airtel's edge computing platform is built on IBM Cloud Satellite and Red Hat OpenShift in a hybrid environment.