As 5G networks become more widely available it’s now possible to deploy a wider range of applications capable of processing and analyzing data as it is collected in real time. Rather than having to transfer large amounts of data over a wide area network (WAN) to be processed in the cloud, it’s feasible to deploy applications on an edge computing platform. Case in point is Siemens and IBM, which are working together to build and deploy applications on a Red Hat OpenShift platform based on Kubernetes on factory floors. Those applications will analyze data created by operational technology (OT) systems as part of an effort to bridge a divide that has historically existed between OT platforms and traditional IT applications.