Operational costs reduced by a factor of five compared to legacy patchwork connectivity providers and solutions
Accelerated international deployment for Airnity (Latin America, the Middle East) and compliance with local regulations across geographies
Simplified operations for manufacturers (elimination of roaming constraints and multi-operator agreements and adaptation to local regulations)
Seamless, continuous, and harmonized connectivity for drivers, worldwide
Scalable and highly available infrastructure
Facing the fragmentation of telecom networks, Airnity developed the first 100% cloud based and globally distributed mobile core network infrastructure and operates this global network exclusively for the connected car use case.
Facing the fragmentation of telecom networks, Airnity developed the first 100% cloud based and globally distributed mobile core network infrastructure and operates this global network exclusively for the connected car use case.
Connectivity factory: Ending the telecom headache for connected cars
The current automotive connectivity environment is very fragmented. Manufacturers must deal with a patchwork of local operators, complex roaming agreements, and varying regulations across countries. This situation directly impacts their business: multiple contracts, complex subscription management, and high roaming costs. Our mission is to end this complexity by providing robust, unified, and cost-effective global connectivity.
Cyril Hullin
CEO and Co-founder, Airnity
Founded in 2021 by experienced entrepreneurs from the telecom and IoT sectors, Airnity is disrupting the norms of automotive connectivity. This French startup has developed a unique approach to address a major challenge: providing harmonized global connectivity to automakers, given that each country has its own telecom infrastructures and regulations.
Airnity's response is embodied in its "Connectivity Factory," an innovative concept that positions the company as the first Full-MVNO (full virtual mobile operator) dedicated exclusively to connected vehicles and entirely deployed on public cloud capabilities. Unlike traditional approaches that require car OEMs to tie complex agreements with multiple local operators, Airnity offers a one-stop shop to manage all vehicles worldwide through a "100% software-defined" core network, fully hosted on Google Cloud.
Modern vehicles integrate a multitude of connected services — real-time navigation, remote software updates, emergency assistance, entertainment platforms — that require a permanent mobile network connection. However, this connectivity faces a major obstacle: the fragmentation of the telecommunications market internationally.
"The current automotive connectivity environment is very fragmented," confirms Cyril Hullin, CEO and Co-founder of Airnity. "Manufacturers must deal with a patchwork of local operators, complex roaming agreements, and varying regulations across countries. This situation directly impacts their business: multiple contracts, complex subscription management, and high roaming costs. Our mission is to end this complexity by providing robust, unified, and cost-effective global connectivity."
To meet this challenge, Airnity developed its "Connectivity Factory," a solution based on a mobile core network, entirely software-defined and distributed worldwide. This revolutionary approach ensures uninterrupted connectivity, regardless of the country where the vehicle travels, through a single access point.
As a Full-MVNO (full virtual mobile operator), Airnity relies on existing mobile operators' access networks worldwide. Wherever and whenever, by automatically connecting to the best available local mobile network, each vehicle equipped with an Airnity SIM card remains connected to Airnity's core network, fully benefiting from the operator's and automaker's connected services.
This approach guarantees optimized, secure, and uniform connectivity for all embedded services, regardless of the vehicle's location. It significantly expands the possibilities for manufacturers, while adapting to the needs of the new generation of Software-Defined Vehicles and respecting local regulatory constraints.
Google Cloud: A strategic partner for ambitious transformation
Supported by automotive giants like Stellantis and Renault Group, Airnity had two options to realize its vision: replicate the traditional telco infrastructure and operator approach by building its own physical infrastructure or adopt a cloud-native strategy for more agile deployment and operation.
"The first option involved heavy investments in data centers and very high operational complexity," explains Cyril Hullin. "The cloud, on the other hand, with an exclusively software approach — without the traditional "bare-metal" network equipment approach that would have hindered our agility — allowed us to benefit from scalability in power and geographic coverage at an optimal cost."
After evaluating the various alternatives, Google Cloud emerged as the ideal partner for both technical and economic reasons.
From our first discussions with Google Cloud, we felt a genuine desire to understand our challenges and address them with concrete solutions. They didn't just provide us with an infrastructure; they truly co-built an architecture optimized for our business with us, adapting their technical and economic models to our needs.
Cyril Hullin
CEO and Co-founder, Airnity
Firstly, "Google Cloud has a global presence superior to its competitors and a robust infrastructure that allows us to deploy our services without geographic constraints," explains Cyril Hullin. "As a leader in Kubernetes, Google Cloud also guarantees us the best environment to execute and orchestrate our containerized services with GKE, and thus be able to scale almost instantly and automatically worldwide. The absence of unpredictable data egress fees was also a decisive factor in our decision."
This last point was particularly crucial because, like any traditional operators, Airnity must constantly manage large data flows in and out of our network hubs. With traditional cloud providers, data egress fees are charged by volume, and the cost can quickly become prohibitive.
"Google Cloud allowed us to bypass this issue thanks to Dedicated Interconnect, a solution that offers a direct connection between our core network and telecom operator infrastructures, without going through the public internet," specifies Cyril Hullin. "This approach significantly reduces data transfer costs while ensuring optimal service quality."
A major revolution for the automotive ecosystem
By leveraging the power and flexibility of Google Cloud, we are laying the foundations for a completely redesigned connectivity ecosystem for the automotive industry. As pioneers of this transformation, we are proud to offer a solution that perfectly adapts to the requirements of the software-defined vehicles that will dominate the market tomorrow.
Cyril Hullin
CEO and Co-founder, Airnity
The partnership between Airnity and Google Cloud, initiated in January 2024, quickly bore fruit. The adoption of Google Cloud allowed the company to reduce its operational costs by a factor of five compared to its previous provider, making its economic model significantly more efficient.
The flexibility and geographic coverage of Google Cloud have significantly accelerated the deployment of its solution in new regions, particularly in Latin America and the Middle East. Simultaneously, by combining AlloyDB for network configuration management and BigQuery for analytics, Airnity can now optimize its traffic and anticipate anomalies in real-time.
"From our first discussions with Google Cloud, we felt a genuine desire to understand our challenges and address them with concrete solutions," emphasizes Cyril Hullin. "They didn't just provide us with an infrastructure; they truly co-built an architecture optimized for our business with us, adapting their technical and economic models to our needs."
"This collaboration goes beyond simply providing cloud services," confirms Benoit Chaix, Principal Architect at Google Cloud. "It illustrates how a cloud infrastructure can revolutionize automotive connectivity and improve the driver experience globally. By becoming the first MVNO to host its entire core network on a public cloud, Airnity positions itself as a key player in the digital transformation of the automotive sector, while allowing us to reaffirm our ambition to become an essential partner in the connected vehicle market."
This synergy between Airnity's disruptive vision and Google Cloud's global infrastructure undoubtedly creates a new standard in automotive connectivity, paving the way for innovative services that will transform the driving experience in the years to come. "By leveraging the power and flexibility of Google Cloud, we are laying the foundations for a completely redesigned connectivity ecosystem for the automotive industry. As pioneers of this transformation, we are proud to offer a solution that perfectly adapts to the requirements of the software-defined vehicles that will dominate the market tomorrow, and which drastically simplifies the operations of car manufacturers to tackle the connectivity challenges," concludes Cyril Hullin.
Founded in 2021 by experts from the telecommunications and Internet of Things (IoT) sectors, Airnity is an innovative French company specializing in automotive connectivity. It develops a globally distributed network platform, enabling automakers to offer smarter and more cost-effective connected services.
Industry: Automotive
Location: Paris, France
Products: Google Cloud, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Dedicated Interconnect, AlloyDB, BigQuery
