MADRID - British telecom operator Vodafone said on Wednesday it had partnered with information technology firm Unisys UIS.N to launch 'Vodafone Digital Factory' to boost its range of IT services as businesses digitise their activity amid the pandemic.

Vodafone hopes to strengthen its portfolio of specialised digital tools for companies looking to integrate their systems or develop specific software for their platforms, said business general manager Daniel Jimenez.

Unisys will help Vodafone's corporate clients integrate and develop technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality or blockchain, Ana Rubia, general manager of Unisys Spain, said in a statement.

Mobile and broadband firms across Europe, struggling with shrinking profit and high costs to meet next-generation connectivity demands, have tried to extract value from their IT, cloud, big data and IoT units amid the acceleration of use cases for such services during the pandemic.

(Reporting by Cristina Gal?n, additional reporting by Clara-Laeila Laudette; editing by Inti Landauro and Steve Orlofsky) ((Cristina.Galan@thomsonreuters.com;))