(Telecompaper) General Electric will team up with Softbank to help bring its big data operations to new customers, the New York Times reported. GE announced in October that its data business was recording annual revenues of over USD 1 billion. The company gleans information from its machines which it turns into insights on how to run the machines better. GE software VP William Ruh said that the first partner, SoftBank, will initially focus on things like manufacturing and shipping in Japan, and then move on to other businesses in Japan, before selling the GE service, called Predix, elsewhere in Asia. So far, GE has applied the data collection and analysis business in aviation, power generation, health care, railroads, and oil and gas production. The company believes that data analysis and optimisation can be incorporated into machine and eventually generate an additional USD 4-5 billion in annual revenue. Besides the analysis capability, G.E. also hopes to sell know-how in building software applications for optimising different machines. No financial details about the parthership with Softbank were disclosed. Ruh said that future deal will likely be in developed nations and in growing economies "where the idea of an asset being down is unacceptable."