Nokia teams up with LS Electrics to build new industrial smart stuff

Kit Vendor Nokia has teamed up with South Korean firm LS Electronics – which specialises in fields such as automation, smart power and smart transportation – to come up with new industrial tech.

The firms will work on new models for factory automation and data centre and electric vehicle charging services. Nokia will also provide technical expertise related to smart factory infrastructure, data centre business and EV charging to help modernise its own facilities.

“We are excited to work with Nokia to develop new competencies and modernize our infrastructure, to provide market-leading solutions and leverage new business models,” said Jong-Woo Kim, President and COO, Global Services at LS Electric. “Nokia is our existing partner and we are confident that its proven expertise and industry-leading solutions will help us realize our business vision.”

Josh Lee, Head of Enterprise at Nokia Korea, added: “The emerging business models for Industry 4.0 demand close collaboration between the enterprises and ICT-based global communication equipment companies to be better placed to leverage the market opportunities. We are pleased that LS ELECTRIC has reiterated its trust in our capabilities and solutions by extending the existing partnership.”

Nokia has certainly been busy in the field of modernising industrial operations particularly in private networks, and claims to have deployed mission-critical networks to more than 2,200 customers in the transport, energy, large enterprise, manufacturing, webscale, and public sector sectors globally.

In December 2021 Nokia deployed a 5G private mobile network for Volkswagen AG at its main plant in Wolfsburg. The campus network is based on 5G standalone technology and uses Nokia’s Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) solution to provide “reliable, secure, real-time connectivity and enable Volkswagen to trial new smart factory use cases.”

And at MWC it announced deals with Cellcom and Telia in what it claims are the world’s first 5G edge slicing trials on live commercial networks. The trial with Israeli telco Cellcom focuses on network slices tailored for business applications and customer experience, while Telia is looking to assess how different 5G edge slicing functions operate at a test mine in Finland.

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