Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and IBM announced today at the Samsung Developer Conference, a new joint platform leveraging IBM Cloud and AI capabilities, and Samsung’s mobile offerings. The collaboration between the two companies brings together IBM’s capabilities with the Samsung Galaxy ecosystem for today’s enterprise customers.

“The mobile industry is undergoing a dramatic transformation and opening up new ways of business by bringing innovative technologies like 5G, AI and IoT to enterprises,” said DJ Koh, President and CEO of IT & Mobile Communications Division, Samsung Electronics. “We believe open collaboration is central to unlocking these opportunities and look forward to driving digital transformation for our enterprise clients in the 5G era with IBM and Samsung’s mobile devices and connected services.”

Safety Platform Powered by IBM Cloud, AI and 5G

Today’s announcement is designed to bring together IBM’s cloud innovations and Samsung’s Galaxy devices ecosystems, including Galaxy Tabs, Galaxy smartphones, and Galaxy Watches. This is designed to help improve the work environments for police officers, fire fighters and other first responders.

According to the International Labor Organization, nearly 3-million deaths occur each year due to occupational accidents. Governments and enterprises have an increasing need to build systems which track the health vitals of workers in remote or high-stress environments.

Built on the IBM Cloud, the new platform will now allow clients to track a worker’s vitals, including heart rate and physical activity, to determine if that person is in distress and automatically dispatch help.

For example, equipped with Samsung’s Galaxy Watches with biometric sensors and Galaxy smartphones enabled with 5G capability, first responders will have their safety and wellness indicators shared on this platform in real time. The solution constantly tracks their vital signs and other key indicators to instantly alert emergency managers if there is a change in any of these data points, which may indicate the responder may be in danger of a heart attack, heat exhaustion, or any other life-threatening event requiring immediate attention. The platform transmits the data to emergency managers to provide insights for their decision-making.

On this new platform, Samsung’s high-speed Galaxy devices can now be used at scale almost anywhere. These devices can be customized to withstand intense environments, such as those encountered by a soldier in the field, power plant employees working in harsh weather conditions, an emergency worker responding to a disaster or a worker in a mining plant.

Currently being piloted by multiple police forces, this new solution provides real time health and situational awareness insights on first responders to reduce operational risks in the field.

“IBM continues to bring leading cloud and AI capabilities with deep industry expertise to our enterprise clients,” said Martin Schroeter, senior vice president of global markets from IBM. “Together, IBM and Samsung will use the power of IBM Cloud, 5G, AI and edge computing to enable our clients to leverage these advanced technologies to have greater impact on the way people work, shop and protect their health and families.”

Samsung and IBM Pave the Way for Enterprise Innovation with 5G and Edge Computing

Samsung’s fit-for-purpose design approach and IBM Garage Methodology creates an open collaboration, accelerating how the two companies test and launch new business ideas with advanced cloud services. This approach integrates practices grounded in deep industry expertise at global scale through culture change into a single approach and driving enterprise design thinking.

The two companies are also collaborating across multiple industries to bring the power of IBM and Samsung to bear, including financial services, energy and healthcare. In addition, with the digitization of the manufacturing industry, this partnership lays the foundation for the automation of factories to become efficient and productive with advanced network services and 5G.

Developers can access and utilize the technology behind the platform and build further capabilities on top to impact other vertical industries like manufacturing, defense and retail.