Ericsson, Volvo Group & Airtel Partner to Drive Digital Twins, XR Adoption in India

Ericsson, Volvo Group and Bharti Airtel have teamed up to explore extended reality (XR), digital twins and AI in manufacturing.

The partnership will look to leverage 5G and 5G Advanced to enhance industrial operations, workforce training and real time process optimisation.

Airtel’s 5G Advanced network will support real-time simulations, design prototyping and immersive training. The project will also test new manufacturing concepts without disrupting operations.

Meanwhile, the research will be conducted at Volvo Group’s factory and R&D centre in Bengaluru. It will focus on Industrial Metaverse applications, enabling seamless human-machine collaboration by merging physical and digital environments. 

“It will explore futuristic Industrial Metaverse applications including human and machine interaction and collaboration – use cases that will blend the physical and digital worlds. Learnings from this research partnership will enable enhanced efficiency and foster innovation in the manufacturing arena , providing a digital platform for immersive training and real time process optimisation through introduction of cutting edge AI technologies,” the companies said in a joint statement. 

Sharat Sinha, director and CEO of Airtel Business, said that via this collaboration, Airtel’s high-speed, low latency 5G network will redefine and transform the manufacturing sector by enabling real-time XR applications for enhanced productivity and efficiencies, while unlocking new revenue streams and accelerating the adoption of Industry 4.0 applications.

Notably, the update comes at a time when the government is increasing its efforts in the direction of XR and digital twins. 

Last month, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to enhance cooperation on advanced technologies such as AI-powered solutions, digital twins, virtual environments, and IMT-2030 innovations.

As part of this agreement, the DoT will contribute insights from its Sangam initiative, while the ITU will share findings from its Citiverse programme. Both organisations will collaborate to integrate cross-sector data and support joint planning efforts.

Notably, the DoT launched the “Sangam: Digital Twin Initiative” in February 2024, aiming to harness 5G/6G, IoT, AI, and AR/VR technologies for developing smart infrastructure. 

This followed the Indian government’s 2023 decision to incorporate the National Digital Twin programme into its national geospatial policy.