(Reuters) – STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Verizon Communications announced a partnership with Alphabet Inc’s Google Cloud on Thursday to combine its 5G network and the tech company’s processing capacity to provide services such as autonomous robots and smart factories.
Telecom companies have been collaborating with technology companies to automate businesses and factories in order to save costs and increase data traffic via private 5G networks that do not compete for speed with others on a public network.
Verizon has also struck private 5G arrangements in a number of countries and collaborated with other cloud providers such as Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS.
Ericsson, a Verizon supplier of telecom equipment, will test the new service at its 5G smart factory in the United States.
A camera mounted to an autonomous mobile robot will scan packages to manage inventory, and the robot will use computer vision to relay data through 5G to an operator.
A camera attached to an autonomous mobile robot will scan packages to maintain inventory and using computer vision, the robot will send details over 5G to an inventory management system, providing real-time analytics, the companies said.