Telstra and data science company Quantium launch a joint venture to drill down into data for industrial customers

Australia’s biggest telco and data science Quantium plan to launch a joint venture business Telstra says will “unlock the potential of data and AI” for the company and its customers.

Sydney-based Quantium is a global leader in using artificial intelligence (AI) to translate raw data into actionable insights. The Woolworths-backed business now operates in 20 countries, with some of the world’s biggest brands, including Walmart, Unilever, Nestle, McDonalds, Qantas and Facebook. 

Telstra CEO Andrew Penn said the partnership would be a key enabler of the telco’s T25 growth strategy.

“This new JV will not only provide personalised and data-enabled products and offers for Telstra’s customers, it will also embed proactive and predictive AI and machine learning across Telstra’s core business,” he said.

“Focusing on our customers and improving the way we serve them is crucial to the success of our T25 strategy. This partnership will supercharge that ambition by reshaping how we add value for our enterprise customers and enable improvements in the personalisation of offers and value for members of Telstra’s rewards program, Telstra Plus.”

Penn said it will also go beyond direct benefits for customers and “will look at how we can also use advanced analytics and machine learning to drive value for our core business, for example to identify fraudulent activity more effectively, or to make enhanced credit decisions.”

It will initially focus Telstra enterprise customers in sectors such as mining, agribusiness and supply chain to create a ‘whole of tech stack’ for industrial customers to help them automate more rapidly and make smarter and more accurate decisions.

The partnership will also leverage Telstra’s Data Hub to enable enterprise and government customers to securely share and aggregate their data whilst also harnessing Quantium’s big data capabilities.

Quantium CEO Adam Driussi said the new company will bring together a combination of Telstra and Quantium’s brightest minds and offer skills transfer and learning and development opportunities for both companies.

“The three key ingredients in any digital transformation are cutting-edge smart networking and connectivity, superb IT and world class data science and AI,” he said.

“This partnership brings all these ingredients together to create a unique ‘whole of stack’ solution that promises to transform Telstra and deliver
enhanced experiences and incredible value for its customers.”

The two companies have already begun servicing enterprise clients and will work together over the coming months to finalise the detailed scope of the partnership.