- Ericsson is one of the founding members of the AI-RAN Alliance
- The Swedish telco is already part of an AI-RAN R&D initiative at T-Mobile US, one of the alliance’s other founders
- Now Ericsson has struck a collaborative agreement with the alliance’s other founding telco member, Japan’s SoftBank
- But it’s not alone – Nvidia and Nokia are already set up in SoftBank’s AI-RAN camp
Ericsson is fast positioning itself as one of the key players in the emerging AI-RAN sector having brokered direct R&D relationships with the two leading telcos in the space, T-Mobile US and Japan’s SoftBank.
Ericsson, along with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Arm, Microsoft, Nokia, Nvidia, Samsung Electronics, SoftBank and T-Mobile US, was announced as a founding member of the AI-RAN Alliance when the new industry body was launched in February this year. It’s aim was to figure out how to use AI tools to better run radio access networks (AI in the RAN), how to integrate AI and RAN workloads on the same underlying IT infrastructure (AI and RAN), and how to develop and deploy AI applications at the edge of the cellular network that can be delivered over high-speed mobile data connections (AI on RAN).
And just recently the Swedish vendor was unveiled, along with Nokia, Nvidia and T-Mobile US, as one of the partners that will invest in an AI-RAN Innovation Centre located at T-Mobile’s headquarters campus in Bellevue, Washington, in a bid to bring RAN and AI innovation “closer together”, “revolutionise” RAN capabilities and “serve customers in unprecedented ways”, the partners announced – see T-Mobile US, Nvidia take the AI-RAN initiative.
