The members of the AI-RAN Alliance will collaborate to advance RAN capabilities through AI to improve spectral efficiency
MWC, Barcelona— Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung Electronics, Microsoft and other major players launched the AI-RAN Alliance, a body aimed at integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into cellular technology to further advance radio access network (RAN) technology and mobile networks.
The announcement was made during Mobile World Congress 2024, taking place this week in Barcelona, Spain.
Other founding members of the new entity include T-Mobile U.S, SoftBank, Arm, Nvidia, AWS, US institution Northeastern University and Deepsig, a startup focused on exploring machine learning application for wireless technologies.
The group’s mission is to enhance mobile network efficiency, reduce power consumption and retrofit existing infrastructure, with the aim of paving the way for unlocking new economic opportunities for telecommunications companies with AI, facilitated by 5G and future 6G systems.
Alliance members plan to collaborate to advance RAN capabilities through AI, to improve spectral efficiency as well as to integrate AI and RAN processes to utilize infrastructure more effectively and generate new AI-driven revenue opportunities.
The partners will also seek to deploy AI services at the network edge through RAN to increase operational efficiency and offer new services to mobile users.
Network operators in the alliance will test and implement these advanced technologies developed through the collective research efforts of the member companies and universities.
Per Beming, vice president and head of standards and industry initiatives at Ericsson, said, “Ericsson sees AI-driven RAN automation as a pivotal shift towards enhancing operational efficiency and unlocking cost reduction opportunities. We anticipate that working together in the Alliance alongside operators, infra vendors and other members, we can collectively leverage relevant data to enable AI use cases that will surface vital insights driving the industry forward.”
“At Microsoft, we believe that artificial intelligence is the defining technology of our time. We are pleased to participate in the AI-RAN Alliance in order to apply AI to help operators optimize their RAN infrastructure investments as well as to extend the role of the RAN to deliver new AI based services that support the needs of modern mobile applications,” said Jason Hogg, general manager of Azure for operators at Microsoft.
Ari Kynäslahti, head of strategy and technology of mobile networks at Nokia, said: “Nokia is proud to join the AI-RAN Alliance and support its efforts to integrate AI into radio access networks. It’s hard to overstate the impact AI will have. It will optimize networks, predict and fix issues, and enhance performance and quality of service. But we are really at the beginning of a long journey and it is imperative we work together to combine our collective expertise and lay the groundwork so that we can all reap the benefits.”
Meanwhile, Charlie Zhang, SVP at Samsung Research America, noted that emerging services in the future 6G era will revolutionize the way people interact with technology, adding that AI will be an integral part of this trend. “The AI-RAN Alliance will foster collaboration, drive innovation and usher in a new era of transformation around AI and 6G networks,” he said.
