NTT DATA, Ericsson partner to deliver global private 5G and edge AI

TOKYO, JAPAN, and STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN — NTT DATA and Ericsson announced a multi-year strategic partnership to accelerate enterprise adoption of private 5G networks integrated with artificial intelligence (AI).

The move combines Ericsson’s private 5G infrastructure with NTT DATA’s managed services to deliver fully managed, globally consistent connectivity solutions that enable real-time, autonomous decision-making at the edge.

“The combined expertise of NTT DATA and Ericsson seamlessly integrates edge AI and physical AI with enhanced connectivity, overcoming operational, scalability, and accountability challenges and accelerating the deployment of AI with confidence,” said Alejandro Cadenas, Associate Vice-President of Worldwide Telco Research at IDC.

Scaling global managed services for enterprise private 5G

With NTT DATA operating in 33 countries as one of its major global system integration and managed service providers, Ericsson will ensure that enterprises can deploy private 5G on a coherent architecture, with uniform operations and consistent security standards worldwide. 

As Shahid Ahmed, Global Head of Edge Services at NTT DATA, notes, “Private 5G gives enterprises the foundation they need to achieve real, measurable impact with Edge AI and physical AI deployments.”

NTT DATA brings its comprehensive enterprise network solutions, wireless expertise, and IT/OT security solutions, bundling Ericsson’s hardware with detailed operational support.

The companies emphasize that this unified structure can help enterprises transition out of pilot programs and into globally scalable, production-ready solutions with confidence. By providing private 5G as a fully managed global service, the partnership reduces vendor complexity and speeds up time-to-value for multinational corporations.

“As enterprises adopt AI at the edge, they need partners who can bring connectivity, intelligence, and security together in a way that actually works in production,” Ahmed noted.

Integrating Edge AI for real-time industrial intelligence

The introduction of Edge AI directly into enterprise connectivity marks a major shift in how industrial data is processed and acted upon.

The NTT DATA Edge AI agents will operate on Ericsson’s enterprise Edge solutions to deliver real-time intelligence and enable autonomous business decisions at the points of data creation. 

The companies have identified high-use cases across various industries where this embedded AI feature delivers quantifiable results. In production, it can automatically inspect quality, perform predictive maintenance, and ensure safety in real time using sensor and vision data. 

Åsa Tamsons, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Area Enterprise Wireless Solutions at Ericsson, notes, “Ericsson has been advancing enterprise connectivity for over a decade. This extends that capability to support edge AI and physical AI at scale across industries.”

The partnership will initially focus across industries, including:

• Manufacturing
• Transportation, ports, and logistics
• Energy and mining
• Smart cities

In transportation, ports, and logistics, the partnership empowers autonomous work based on real-time vehicle and asset information to enable dynamic route use, vehicle tracking, and safety. 

Remote and autonomous operations, intelligent inspection, and AI-based monitoring are useful in the energy and mining industries in complex and dangerous regions. 

Meanwhile, applications related to smart cities comprise intelligent traffic control, city safety monitoring, and real-time energy and municipal services.

These industry-ready solutions, spanning manufacturing, mining, ports, airports, energy, transportation, and smart cities, demonstrate the partnership’s focus on delivering repeatable, proven private 5G and Edge AI use cases that generate tangible return on investment.

“By combining our global platforms with NTT DATA’s engineering and managed services, industry expertise, and AI-driven operations, enterprises can move from experimentation to always-on, production-grade operations,” Tamsons concluded.

NTT DATA is ranked #24 in the OA500 2025, an objective index of the world’s top 500 outsourcing companies. The 2026 edition of the OA500 is expected to be released in March. (Read the OA500 2026 methodology paper here.)