Tech consortium unveils private 5G, AI-powered edge innovation hub

Nokia, Dätwyler IT Infra, Intel and the Switzerland Innovation Park Biel/Bienne (SIPBB) have opened a technology hub for startups and nonprofits to accelerate industrial digitisation through private 5G and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered edge services.

SIPBB will offer an industrial testbed to trial real-time AI and private 5G offerings in a full-scale deployment environment without incurring infrastructure costs. The trial site will look to enable several industrial use cases, including predictive maintenance powered by real-time analytics to minimise downtime and material waste; push-to-talk and video communication tools to keep teams connected without on-site travel, and AI-enhanced safety monitoring to improve situational awareness and worker safety.

“SIPBB is a hub for pioneering researchers, engineers and investors to meet with industrial partners in startup ecosystems to exchange ideas, test and validate new technologies,” said, Michael Wendling, co-lead Swiss Smart Factory at SIPBB. “It provides a full-scale deployment environment for trialling new technologies and realising research projects. We are aiming for the hub to attract global investment, and support Swiss economic growth and digital leadership.”

The hub’s founding partners believe energy-efficient automation will ensure consistent productivity with reduced environmental impact. Additionally, the site features natural human-machine interaction through generative AI (GenAI)-driven digital assistants, allowing workers to communicate with machines using intuitive, conversational language.

Infrastructure available includes Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) private wireless networks, MX Industrial Edge (MXIE) and applications such as MX Workmate, claimed to be the industry’s first OT-compliant GenAI solution for connected workers.

“We believe technology should empower industries to increase efficiency, safety and sustainability,” said Michael Aspinall, head of enterprise campus edge sales in Europe at Nokia.

“Through our partnership with Intel, Dätwyler and SIPBB, we are supporting digital equity by enabling innovators to test future-ready solutions without upfront infrastructure costs to accelerate development, validate use cases and scale digital transformation in the real world.”

Nokia also believes these technologies, alongside Intel Xeon Scalable processors and edge AI capabilities, such as visual positioning and object detection, provide a real-world testbed open to nonprofit research and startup collaboration without the usual cost or deployment challenges.

“The success of industrial digital transformation depends on how enterprises capture data, securely transport it and bring AI closer for data analysis and decision making,” said Bhupesh Agrawal, general manager of private 5G and enterprise AI at Intel.

“The partnership with Nokia, SIPBB and Dätwyler showcases use cases that leverage Intel Xeon servers powering both connectivity and AI inference at the enterprise edge. CPU [central processing unit]-based AI inferencing not only lowers TCO [total cost of operation], but also enables flexible, scalable and sustainable solutions at the enterprise edge.”

Pascal Walther, head of IT/OT at Dätwyler IT Infra, added: “With our many years of experience in edge and datacentre architectures, we enable the secure, high-performance and scalable implementation of industrial 5G and AI applications. Together with SIPBB, Nokia and Intel, we are creating an infrastructure platform that startups and research teams can use without any barriers to entry.”