Capgemini, the French IT services giant, has opened a 5G-focused corporate hub in San Francisco.

Employees at the hub will assist the firm’s telco clients with applying 5G networking technology in their business.

Capgemini, like many other companies in the enterprise IT market, operates facilities that effectively function as technology showrooms. A client can drop by one of the showrooms, learn about the IT product they’re looking to buy and find ways of applying it to their business.

Capgemini’s new 5G hub in San Francisco serves the same purpose, but with a narrow focus on wireless networking. It’s located inside an existing Capgemini campus called the Applied Innovation Exchange that the firm has already been using to demonstrate advanced IT products to clients.

The new 5G hub will help telcos find the optimal way to deploy and monetize next-generation networking technologies. Buying 5G equipment is expensive and, before a company makes the jump, it has to develop a solid plan for realizing a return on investment.

Capgemini will host ideation workshops at its new San Francisco hub to help clients find ways of applying 5G. The workshops will also include the participation of Capgemini tech partners: 5G projects often involve a large number of tech suppliers who all need to be part of key business conversations.

How does Capgemini fit into the picture? The French company offers an expansive roster of 5G engineering and project planning services to companies adopting the technology.

An important detail is that Capgemini’s new San Francisco hub will cater to not only to carriers but also other companies in other verticals.

Carriers buy most of the 5G equipment market on the market, but not all of it: some of the hardware is purchased by companies looking to build private, miniatured 5G networks at their own corporate facilities. Those companies represent a sizable market for Capgemini’s 5G consulting services business.

Capgemini hasn’t publicly disclosed how much revenue it generates from 5G and other telecom contracts. But the company did reveal recently that the telecommunications, media and technology sectors together accounted for 12% of the €5.754 billion in revenue it generated last quarter.

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