IBM and Bharti Airtel are planning to work together to deploy the latter’s edge computing platform in India, which will include 120 network data centers across 20 Indian cities. Once deployed, the platform is designed to enable large enterprises across multiple industries including manufacturing and education – to accelerate innovative solutions that deliver new value to their clients and operations – securely at the edge.

Airtel’s edge computing platform, deployed as a hybrid environment based on IBM Cloud Satellite and Red Hat OpenShift, extends secured and open cloud services wherever data resides. This can help improve business performance and customer experience by reducing latency while addressing data security and sovereignty requirements – which is critical as workloads increasingly shift to the edge.

The business value delivered by edge computing can be significantly enhanced when combined with 5G. In India, where 5G is expected to be rolled out later this year, it has the potential to create a cumulative economic impact of $1 trillion by 2035.

Maruti Suzuki India is planning to use the edge platform to increase accuracy and efficiency for quality inspections on the factory floor. By deploying this platform, Maruti Suzuki expects to boost quality control and ensure their data remains protected at the edge, which is critical for ensuring the safety of the vehicles.

Airtel’s solution leverages IBM Maximo Visual Inspection for AI-enabled quality inspection. IBM Consulting is to lead the systems integration for the platform. Through this platform and IBM Consulting’s industry expertise and access to best-in-class technology and partners, IBM will build use cases that leverage Airtel’s 5G connectivity capabilities to address the pressing business issues faced by enterprise clients.