Orange signs new Google Cloud deal to boost its AI clout

Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) is described as a fully managed hardware and software solution that brings Google's AI services to the edge, air-gapped environments, and cross-cloud, and is designed for AI and other data-intensive workloads.

Deploying it is intended to ‘enable Orange to take a pivotal step towards accelerating AI adoption’ across the 26 countries it operates in. Armed with this, it intends to focus on three areas for its new push.

Using GDC, Orange will build an environment to run sensitive network data and AI workloads that some country regulators may require to be local or on-premise. Through the automation of reporting, classification, and analysis, Orange says it will enjoy ‘significant improvements in network planning and design.’

It also plans to run gen AI models on-premise, which Orange's operations and customer service teams will benefit by ‘getting the answers they need faster’, while customers will get improved quality of service, we’re told.

AI and Google Cloud deployments will also deliver personalised customer recommendations for relevant phones, plans, and services. GDC also allows gen AI-based speech recognition to occur in each Orange country, bringing the tech ‘even to countries without a Google Cloud region,’ we’re told.

"We have a mission to accelerate value creation for Orange with every job, every network, and every customer experience super-powered by responsible AI. Orange sees enormous value in AI across every dimension of our business," said Christel Heydemann, CEO of Orange Group. "This partnership with Google Cloud and the cutting-edge solutions announced today are foundational to Orange achieving AI at scale and is a major step towards unlocking significant value from all of our data."

Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud: "Businesses are increasingly bringing gen AI solutions to the edge of the network to ensure better agility, responsiveness, and resilience. Our partnership with Orange addresses that need, combining data, reliable infrastructure, and leading AI technologies to create new solutions to meet Orange's global needs."

The collaboration was announced at Google’s Cloud Next '24 event in Las Vegas, and a similar deal with Verizon also came out of that, in which the US operator will use Google Cloud for multimodal chatbots, personalized self-service, and productivity tools for network operations and customer service teams.

It also announced a ton of deals involving cloud and AI with firms from an array of industries, such as Mercedes-Benz, Bayer, WPP, IGH Hotels, Palo Alto Networks, Best Buy, Discover Financial Services, Cintas, Broadcom, and PwC.