The UK's BT Group has chosen Optiva, a leading company in the telecommunications cloud sector, to launch innovative new services integrating AI and blockchain technologies.

These services are expected to target industries such as banking, healthcare and insurance. This move forms a key part of BT's strategy, aiming to extend the reach of its 5G network to cover over 90% of the UK by 2028.

In a recent announcement, the UK's leading fixed and mobile telecommunications provider, BT Group, stated it has furthered its strategic collaboration with Optiva. This partnership's main goal is to develop new B2B, B2C, and B2B2X services while driving revenue growth.

As a key feature of this future-focused partnership, Optiva's application server, part of the Optiva Charging Engine, will receive an upgrade to a more advanced, cloud-native, and open architecture service creation platform. This new platform will include Optiva's Open API framework, allowing for integration with novel technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence.

To make this strategic vision a reality and reach its goal of a 90% penetration of 5G network coverage by 2028, BT Group requires a wholly flexible service creation platform.

This platform should enable rapid design, testing, and deployment of novel services and allow for partnerships across a breadth of sectors, including banking, healthcare, and insurance. Proactively addressing new challenges, such as entailing fraud, is also in the pipeline.

With the help of the updated application server from Optiva, BT Group aims to build new services using a proven test automation platform-based automated development framework. This move is expected to enhance their time to market and operational efficiency.

"Optiva has been a strategic partner for over a decade, enabling us to continuously innovate and meet our business goals. The next-generation Optiva application server will allow us to integrate with cutting-edge technology partners and build innovative new services for consumers and enterprises," said Nitin Patel, Head of Mobile and Messaging at BT.

The upgrade of BT's application server will maximise its capacity to innovate, amalgamate and exploit emerging technologies, including AI and blockchain, according to the company.

"BT's application server upgrade will provide it with increased power to innovate, integrate and capitalise on emerging technologies, including blockchain and AI tools. It will also expose more network services to support new offerings. We value BT's trust and are committed to further empowering BT to capture new market opportunities, achieve its goals and expand its business success," said Robert Stabile, CEO of Optiva.

This upgrade will facilitate BT's venture into more network services to sustain new offerings, the company states. Optiva states it is committed to further empowering BT to capture new market opportunities, achieve its objectives and expand its business success.