• Tencent Cloud and U Mobile have signed an MoU to develop and test 5G and AI applications for Malaysian enterprises and SMEs
  • Projects will use U Mobile's Enterprise Innovation Platform to move potential applications through development, testing and demonstration

The fact

Tencent Cloud and Malaysian operator U Mobile have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore enterprise 5G and AI applications. The partnership combines Tencent Cloud's cloud and AI capabilities with U Mobile's ULTRA5G network, enterprise reach and Enterprise Innovation Platform.

Tencent Cloud will join the platform as a strategic partner and work with U Mobile to identify applications that can move through its Develop-Test-Demonstrate process. The companies said successful use cases could progress towards pilot deployments and commercialisation.

No commercial products, customers, contract values or deployment dates were announced. The companies also did not say where the computing infrastructure for applications developed under the partnership will run.

The assessment

At this stage, the value of the partnership is practical: it gives U Mobile and Tencent Cloud somewhere to work out the plumbing before they try to sell a finished service. U Mobile brings the 5G network and enterprise relationships; Tencent Cloud brings the compute, AI services and software layer.

The first deployments should make the division much clearer. Some applications may need processing close to the network, while others can run centrally in the cloud. That choice affects latency, cost and who is responsible when performance drops or a fault crosses from one platform to the other.

For BTW readers, this only becomes a real enterprise proposition once a customer is running a live workload on it. Until then, it is a development framework. A commercial deployment will show whether the two companies have built something businesses can operate day to day, rather than simply demonstrate.

What to watch

Watch for the first named enterprise pilots, the sectors selected and details of where application workloads are hosted. Commercial launches following the Develop-Test-Demonstrate process would show that projects are progressing beyond demonstrations.