- Companies aim to help the industry move from 6G research to commercial reality
- AI-native network innovation collaboration to span compute, connectivity, cloud and standards leadership across the core network, RAN and Edge
- The effort is designed to help make the path to 6G more open, efficient and cost-effective for operators and the broader ecosystem
Ericsson and Intel are pooling their next-generation technology leadership to help accelerate ecosystem readiness for seamless transition to AI-native 6G deployments and use cases.
The collaboration – an extension of a decades’ long relationship – was announced at Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2026. It will span mobile connectivity, cloud technologies, and compute capabilities across AI-driven RAN and packet core use cases, and platform level-security and network capabilities to help enhance ecosystem enablement and time-to-market for cloud-native solutions.
Börje Ekholm, President and CEO, Ericsson, says: “6G is not merely an iteration of mobile technology. It is the infrastructure that will distribute AI across devices, the edge and the cloud. Ericsson’s long history of network innovation and large-scale operator deployments positions us to lead practical integration across the value chain and move 6G from research into commercial reality.”
Lip-Bu Tan, CEO, Intel, says: “Intel’s ambition is to be the undisputed technology leader in unifying RAN, Core and edge AI to enable a seamless transition to AI-native 6G environments. Together with Ericsson, we will continue to demonstrate that the future of network connectivity is open, power-efficient, secure and grounded in intelligent AI inference. With future Ericsson Silicon, powered by Intel’s most advanced process nodes, ongoing multi-year research plans, and flexible AI-RAN ready Cloud RAN powered by Intel Xeon, we are well on our way to delivering the future performance, efficiency, and supply security that the world’s leading operators require.”
A shared commitment
As 6G transitions from the research phase to commercial reality, the industry needs a collaborative, well-prepared ecosystem-aligned with global standards bodies and industry organizations to help turn innovation into deployable infrastructure.
The collaboration will advance future high-performance, and energy-efficient compute architectures designed for both AI for networks and Networks for AI.
AI-native 6G will combine intelligent and programmable networks with advanced compute and real-time sensing, creating a stronger foundation for more responsive, efficient and capable services. Over time, that evolution could bring sensing and compute closer together across the network.
