Vodafone and Zinkworks, an Irish tech company, are developing a generative AI driven platform to churn out radio access network (RAN) applications “within weeks, not months.”
The platform, called Rapid RIC, is expected to be fully operational by early 2026, and promises to improve mobile service quality, network energy efficiency, and performance for Vodafone customers throughout Europe.
It will combine data analytics, a visual interface, and code-generating AI to enable engineers to more easily develop, deploy and monitor network software applications known as rApps. These applications, the release explains, negate the need to manually upgrade a mobile mast, instead enabling automatic and autonomous signal boosts, the remote detection and resolution of faults and the deactivation of unused links to save energy.
