• Deutsche Telekom has long had a close relationship with Google Cloud
• Now that ‘strategic partnership’ is going deeper, with data management and AI at its heart
• The collaboration will help the giant German telco with its ‘AI-first’ strategy

Deutsche Telekom has deepened its relationship with Google Cloud by striking an extended strategic partnership agreement that stretches to 2030 and is built around data management and AI developments. 

The giant German telco has been working closely with the hyperscaler for years already: The two companies announced a raft of developments in 2022 related to cloud-hosted virtual network functions and data management processes – see Now Deutsche Telekom takes its 5G core onto Google’s Cloud.

And just recently, Deutsche Telekom (DT) announced it had collaborated with Google Cloud on the development of a network AI agent designed to improve radio access network (RAN) operations. Dubbed RAN Guardian, the agent, built using Gemini 2.0 in Vertex AI (Google Cloud’s unified developer platform), can “analyse network behaviour, detect performance issues, and implement corrective actions to improve network reliability, reduce operational costs and enhance customer experiences,” the telco noted.

Now the partners are set to do much more in the AI and associated data management arena.

DT says the new agreement focuses on cloud and AI integration for the operator’s IT, networks, and business applications, including the migration of its SAP systems to the Google Cloud platform. The telco said it expects the partnership to “enhance its operational efficiency, improve customer experiences, and ultimately lead technological innovation in the telecom industry”.

Essentially, Google Cloud has secured the role of “preferred partner” for DT as the telco migrates critical business functions and processes to the cloud: That means the hyperscaler will help DT modernise and scale its data and AI applications “that are significantly contributing to the company’s digital transformation strategy,” commented DT. 

And as the telco’s CEO Tim Höttges noted last year, the company has hundreds of AI projects underway – see Deutsche Telekom has 400 AI projects – CEO.

And the partners aren’t starting from scratch – DT last year turned to Google Cloud to help it build its One Data Ecosystem (ODE), an AI-integrated, interconnected data platform for DT’s operations in Germany that is designed to unify its data management and processing. In a blog published in November 2024, the telco’s VP of data and architecture, Ashutosh Mishra, noted that it needed to consolidate data from 40 to 50 different on-premises systems that were often slow to respond to data queries, and that the only way to achieve its goals was to modernise its data management estate, a process that meant “digitising everything from how our users interact to how we process our data and manage our back-end systems” while enabling advanced AI solutions and meeting regulatory requirements. Google Cloud was selected because it was able to deal with increasing volumes of data while maintaining the highest standards of security and data protection.

Commenting on the new, expanded relationship with its hyperscaler partner, Stefan Schloter, CIO for Europe at DT, noted: “Deutsche Telekom is becoming an AI-first company. By leveraging data and AI, we are improving agility and optimising digital solutions across all our business entities, software engineering, and customer interfaces to deliver superior experiences for our customers. Our collaboration with Google Cloud further strengthens these efforts, driving innovation and efficiency.” 

As part of the ongoing engagement, DT will make further use of Vertex AI to develop, deploy and scale AI applications and initiatives using Google’s latest Gemini models, just as it did for the RAN Guardian application. DT noted that it has also integrated Google’s Gemini Multimodal Live API into its MyMagenta consumer app to give DT mobile customers “contextually relevant [AI] assistance when needed.” The telco added, “MyMagenta app users can translate conversations in real time, or translate written text from signs, menus, and other documents, just by looking at them through a device’s camera,” while “Google’s Gemini Multimodal Live API enables natural, human-like voice conversations where users can interrupt the model at any time. The model's video understanding capability expands ways to communicate, enabling you to share camera input or screencasts and ask questions about them.” 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV