Google Cloud & Ericsson Bring 5G to the Edge Cloud

Businesses today are under more pressure than ever to digitally transform their workplaces. Innovative technologies and solutions that connect customers and increase productivity for workers are essential.

Now, Google Cloud and Ericsson are working together to push these efforts forward for enterprises and consumers. As per their latest partnership, the companies will help communications service providers deliver capabilities to the edge. Using Google Cloud's compute platform with Ericsson's market-leading 5G portfolio, they’re hoping to bring new solutions to the automotive, transportation, manufacturing, and other sectors.

The goal is to utilize the power of 5G and edge cloud solutions to improve efficiencies and lower latency through connectivity close to a companies' physical locations.

There are already pilots underway in Italy with TIM where they are piloting enterprise applications at the edge on a live network. More specifically, they are automating the “functions of TIM's core 5G network and cloud-based applications...using TIM's Telco Cloud infrastructure, Google Cloud solutions, and Ericsson's 5G core network and orchestration technologies.”

"5G is a powerful innovation platform. Combined with edge cloud capabilities, 5G has the potential to accelerate the digital transformation of virtually any sector of industry or society," said Niklas Heuveldop, President and Head of Ericsson North America. "We are excited about our partnership with Google Cloud as we engage with our customers to leverage our combined capabilities to solve real-world business challenges for the benefit of consumers, enterprises, and society at large."

The partners are working together our of Ericsson’s Silicon Valley D-15 Labs to develop and test their offering on a live, multi-layer 5G platform.

"Organizations have a tremendous opportunity to digitally transform their businesses with 5G and cloud capabilities like artificial intelligence and machine learning at the edge," said Thomas Kurian, CEO at Google Cloud. "We are proud to partner with Ericsson to help build a foundation for communications service providers and enterprises alike to take advantage of cloud technology and cloud-native services, from telecom network core to the edge and enterprise premises.”

Edited by Luke Bellos