Ericsson and Google Cloud detailed plans to jointly develop and deliver edge cloud solutions for operators and enterprise customers, combining the vendor’s 5G portfolio with the US company’s cloud compute platform.

The pair will work together in Silicon Valley at Ericsson’s D-15 Labs, a live 5G platform on which companies can test AI applications and other technologies.

Telecom Italia was lined up as the first operator partner for the companies. It plans to pilot enterprise applications at the edge on its live network.

Google Cloud and Ericsson explained they will target companies in the automotive, transportation, manufacturing and other sectors with systems designed to improve efficiency by bringing 5G closer to premises.

The pair noted they have already started working together through a previous services partnership meant to help operators migrate applications to the cloud through container-based solutions.

Ericsson said it integrated its 5G platform with Anthos, a Google software platform used by enterprises to run containerised workloads across multiple clouds as well as on-premise servers.

The alliance with Google Cloud is the latest in string of partnerships between Ericsson and cloud service providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS). Ericsson has also integrated its Connected Vehicle Cloud with the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform on Azure.

Earlier this year, Google Cloud struck a deal with Nokia covering cloud-native systems for operators and their enterprise customers.