Telefónica Tech accelerates its AI business with ten specialised centres

Telefónica Tech continues to strengthen its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to help organisations make data-driven decisions that enable them to build more efficient and resilient businesses. Telefónica’s digital business unit has teams specialising in artificial intelligence in ten global centres to provide customers with a service tailored to their local needs and consolidate its position as a benchmark technology partner for their digital transformation process.

The technology company currently has more than 400 professionals dedicated to the research, development and application of artificial intelligence use cases for customers (public and private) in multiple sectors of activity, after making strategic acquisitions in recent years to complement existing capabilities in this technology.

These professionals are currently distributed in the specialised centres that the company has created in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Valladolid), the United Kingdom (London), Central Europe (Slovenia and Austria), Brazil (Sao Paulo) and the Hispam region (Santiago de Chile and Mexico City) to provide a full service and extended hours to customers.

Telefónica Tech’s artificial intelligence experts have more than 150 certifications (both internal and third party) in this technology and a solid network of partners that complement its portfolio of solutions.

Elena Gil Lizasoain, director of the artificial intelligence and data business unit at Telefónica Tech, said: “We have numerous technological solutions to optimise the processes of organisations based on artificial intelligence and the enormous potential it offers when combined with other technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain and cybersecurity. The global knowledge and experience of our teams is allowing us, for example, to help companies predict the demand for their products, automate processes, improve their decision making and personalise their customers‘ experience’”.

Telefónica Tech’s artificial intelligence solutions (traditional and generative) incorporate by design the ethical principles defined by Telefónica for this technology, which commit to using it in a fair, transparent and explainable way, focusing on people and taking into account security and privacy throughout the process (including partners and other external actors).

Sector specialisation

Telefónica Tech has artificial intelligence products and services adapted to the specific needs of different sectors of activity, with public administration, health, industry and sport being the areas in which some of the most relevant projects have recently been developed.

The technology company is collaborating on projects with several employment departments to help improve the functioning of the labour market with a model based on professional skills, which allows predicting those that will be most in demand and guiding the unemployed with training recommendations. In this way, employability is improved and there is a better match between supply and demand.

In the healthcare sector, Telefónica Tech has developed a joint product with the multinational Solventum (formerly 3M Healthcare) to boost the optimisation of hospital emergency services. The implementation of artificial intelligence is making it possible to predict the number of patients who will attend in the coming days, what specialties they will require and how many of them may need to be admitted. The aim is to facilitate the right sizing of the different services to provide better quality of care and patient experience, as well as helping to reduce the pressure on healthcare professionals.

In industry, Telefónica Tech is applying artificial intelligence to exploit the data generated in the factory to facilitate demand planning, predictive maintenance and quality control, avoiding production stoppages and minimising the consumption of raw materials. In other words, artificial intelligence is helping companies in the sector to become more productive, efficient, resilient and sustainable.

The world of sport is another of the areas in which Telefónica Tech is intensively applying this technology together with IoT to help technical teams to improve athletes’ training, prevent possible injuries and prepare strategies for each competition. For example, the company is helping the Royal Spanish Athletics Federation to improve the performance of athletes through the use of inertial measurement devices and the application of artificial intelligence algorithms and advanced analytics on the data collected.