AT&T moved to speed the rollout of edge computing capabilities to enterprise customers by offering access to IBM’s distributed cloud platform on its 5G network.

The move will marry AT&T’s 5G and multi-access edge compute capabilities with IBM’s recently unveiled Cloud Satellite service, which allows companies to tap the company’s public cloud at their premises or regionally.

AT&T stated this will allow enterprises to take advantage of increased data transfer speeds; lower latency; AI insights; and encryption to protect sensitive data. It cited healthcare; manufacturing; retail; supply chain; and banking and finance as examples of sectors which could reap the greatest benefits.

Customers will be able to manage their deployments through a dashboard providing an overview of multiple clouds and billions of devices.

Howard Boville, IBM SVP of hybrid cloud, said the move is “a significant step forward” which increases “the possibilities of 5G and edge in the enterprise”.

The collaboration expands on a partnership deal IBM and AT&T inked in July 2019: the operator is also pursuing cloud work with Microsoft.