Telefonica Tech and IBM today announced a new collaboration agreement to drive the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI), analytics and data governance solutions to meet the ever-changing and dynamically changing needs of businesses. The agreement, initially limited to Spain, establishes a framework for collaboration between the two companies to help their clients cope with the complexity of managing new technologies in a heterogeneous and changing environment and extract the full value of these technologies in their business processes.
According to the conclusions of IBM Global AI Adoption Index Study, almost half of Spanish companies already working with AI say they have accelerated their investments in this technology in the last 24 months. This highlights the need to provide the business landscape with tools and solutions that guide their digital transformation journey, in which AI plays a leading role.
Through this new collaboration, the companies will work together to develop and deploy an open, hybrid, multi-cloud platform, specializing in data management and AI to facilitate and accelerate clients’ business initiatives, an office of use cases, demonstrations and MVP development; and the implementation of resources, training and certifications. Last year, IBM launched the Watsonx AI and Data platform, which will be at the heart of the collaboration agreement.
Elena Gil Lizasoain, Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Business Unit at Telefónica Tech, said: “This new collaboration with IBM will help harness the many benefits of artificial intelligence, traditional and generative, as well as good data management. data in the business world. By combining the knowledge of both teams, we will continue to move forward in building use cases aimed at creating more efficient and sustainable businesses.
Adolfo Hernández Pulido Technology, General Manager of Telefónica at IBM, added: “This collaboration is another step in our long history of collaboration with Telefónica Tech. Together we are accelerating the digital transformation of the Spanish business world, enabling the development of innovative technological solutions that will help businesses adapt to the AI era. Analytics, data governance, and the correct deployment of AI are key to the success of today’s businesses, and we both share a commitment to helping businesses achieve this.
Technology and co-creation to provide answers to the real needs of businesses
Telefónica Tech and IBM will launch a Use Case Office, staffed by highly qualified professionals from both companies, to promote and coordinate the definition and development of use cases, proofs of concept and MVPs to accelerate development business and further highlight the value available to customers through the use of these technologies.
IBM Client Engineering, the IBM team that helps solve business challenges through co-creation and innovative work with experts, will play an important role in the use case office, as will Telefónica Tech professionals who bring deep technical knowledge and experience in implementing AI in the business sector.
The collaboration already provides its customers with generative AI solutions that include code generation for IT applications, process and incident automation, cognitive assistants in industrial operations, consulting and customer service, analytics , processing and management of audiovisual content and text documents.
IBM and Telefónica Tech have a strong history of collaboration that includes hybrid cloud-based solutions, such as TROS, Telefónica Tech’s multi-cloud service based on RedHat OpenShift; Built-in AI for creating virtual assistants to improve customer service; and optimized supply chain management to increase the traceability of company assets with blockchain. This joint effort is the next step in the successful relationship in which both companies continue to drive innovation and digital business transformation through the implementation of cutting-edge technologies.
SHARK.X, the new platform to manage end-to-end AI deployment
SHARK.X, a new innovative open, hybrid and multi-cloud platform that hosts different IBM hardware and software components, with access to IBM Cloud and other clouds, where the native hyperconverged infrastructure IBM Storage Fusion HCI stands out for running enterprise applications, will be deployed at the Telefónica Tech facilities in La Cabina, which is Telefónica’s technological inspiration center for the digital transformation of businesses and public administrations.
Telefónica Tech will provide specialized professional services to define the most appropriate deployment architecture for each client and integrate the solution into their environment, as well as ingest data from different sources and develop artificial intelligence use cases aimed at meeting their business priorities. It will also provide advice in the area of data governance and artificial intelligence models as well as in the area of regulatory and ethical compliance, which is particularly relevant with the new regulations approved in the European Union.
At the software level, SHARK.X will include several IBM technologies that will cover the entire value chain associated with enterprise data management, analysis and management of enterprise data. SHARK.X will host IBM Cloud Pak for Data to enable data collection, organization, analysis and governance; it will include the IBM Watsonx AI and Data platform to create, deploy and scale AI applications in a simple, secure and governed manner; as well as Cognos and Planning Analytics, which enable collaborative business intelligence, planning and reporting solutions.
With these capabilities, the SHARK:X platform will address traditional and generative AI initiatives and address end-to-end data governance and management while providing a Lakehouse as a robust enterprise data management solution. business, helping to ensure data security and protection and ensure business operations. intelligence, planning, optimization and reporting.
