By Cyber Era NG Special Correspondent

Liberty Global and Infosys, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, have announced that they have expanded their collaboration to evolve and scale Liberty Global’s cutting-edge digital entertainment and connectivity platforms.

Building on their existing multi-year collaboration which has successfully supported Liberty Global’s technology services platforms since February 2020, the companies will significantly expand the program, with Infosys taking over build and operations of Liberty Global’s award-winning Horizon entertainment and connectivity platforms.

By bringing the scale and breadth of Infosys, including cutting-edge technologies such as Infosys TopazTM AI offering, the expanded collaboration ensures continued operational excellence, a highly scalable development engine for new features and capabilities, and efficiencies for Liberty Global.

The parties have entered into an initial 5-year agreement, with an option to extend to 8 years and beyond. Infosys will provide services to Liberty Global estimated at €1.5bn(US$1.62billion) over the initial 5-year term and at €2.3bn if the contract is extended to 8 years. The collaboration allows Liberty Global to realize run-rate savings in excess of €100 million per annum, inclusive of other savings and technology investments.

In addition, Liberty Global is licensing these platforms to Infosys so the digital services provider can offer best-in-class services to new operators and new markets outside the Liberty Global family. This will potentially enable millions of new customers, around the world, to experience next-generation digital entertainment and connectivity services through Horizon for the first time. Liberty Global will continue to control product roadmaps and retain all intellectual property for the Horizon entertainment and connectivity platforms.

The expanded collaboration will additionally create exciting career opportunities for more than 400 Liberty Global employees joining Infosys, who will benefit from its global scale and reach. Under the terms of the business arrangements, senior executives and technology teams from Liberty Global’s Product, Technology Development Service Delivery Group, Network & Shared Operations and Security Groups will transition to Infosys. They will benefit from global business exposure, scale, and wider career advancement opportunities. They will also play an important role in shaping the future of Infosys’ communications, media and entertainment business and add significantly to its engineering capabilities.

CEO, Liberty Global, Mike Fries, said: “Strengthening and expanding our collaboration with Infosys gives our bestin-class solutions new scale with the ability to reach many more markets and bring positive experiences to more customers. And while it produces substantial central cost savings over time, it also provides excellent opportunities for our talent to grow their specialist skills and nurture impactful careers with Infosys. We look forward to working together to accelerate innovation and make our entertainment solutions even more powerful and engaging as new generations of digital-first customers continue to demand more from us all.”

CEO & MD, Infosys, Salil Parekh said: “We are excited to bring Infosys Topaz™ to enable transformative AI-first capabilities to complement the cloud-first digital foundation we have laid for Liberty Global using Infosys Cobalt. This will unveil a new chapter in our joint journey of innovation as we reimagine entertainment and the connectivity experience for millions of global consumers. The strength of our global operations will also help the business scale across markets. As we prepare to welcome new talent and teams of innovators to Infosys, we look forward to building on the trust that Liberty Global has in us.”

CTO, Liberty Global, Enrique Rodriguez said: “Our collaboration with Infosys started a few years ago, and since then we’ve made great progress in jointly establishing our best-in-class entertainment and connectivity platforms. This expansion of our relationship is the right next step to further strengthen the performance of our digital-first entertainment and connectivity solutions, scale their reach and impact, even as we chart the next round of innovations that we will drive together.”

Executive Vice President – Global Head of Communications, Media & Technology, Infosys, Anand Swaminathan added: “Infosys’ collaboration with Liberty Global will deliver state-of-the-art, AI-powered entertainment solutions-as-a-service that will bring great flexibility to 10 million Liberty Global customers. We will also offer these platforms as a powerful choice to other telecom clients. We are excited to welcome Liberty Global’s specialist talent to Infosys to deliver on this ambitious programme.”

The agreement is subject to regulatory approvals and consultations with relevant Works Councils.