NVIDIA partners with T-Mobile, Ericsson, and Nokia to design and drive the future of mobile networks with AI-RAN.
The collaboration is built around the new NVIDIA AI Aerial platform, a suite of accelerated computing hardware and software designed to optimize wireless networks and address the needs of generative AI across industries including mobile devices, robotics, autonomous vehicles and smart factories.
Key components of the NVIDIA AI Aerial platform include:
- NVIDIA Aerial CUDA accelerated RAN: Software libraries that enable partners to develop and deploy high-performance virtualized RAN workloads on NVIDIA-accelerated computing platforms.
- NVIDIA Air AI Radio Frames: Software libraries based on PyTorch and TensorFlow for developing and training models to improve spectral efficiency and add new capabilities to 5G and 6G radio signal processing. This includes Sionnaa link-level simulator that enables the development and training of 5G and 6G radio algorithms based on neural networks.
- NVIDIA Aerial Omniverse Digital Twin (AODT): A system-level network digital twin development platform enabling physically accurate simulations of wireless systems, from single base stations to complete networks spanning entire cities.
Central to this initiative is the creation of an industry-first AI-RAN Innovation Center based in Bellevue, Washington. The center will focus on bringing together RAN and AI innovations to deliver enhanced customer network experiences through the development of AI-RAN.
Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobilesaid: “Just as T-Mobile led in 5G, we intend to lead the next wave of network technologies, for the benefit of our customers. AI-RAN at T-Mobile will be focused on unlocking the massive capacity and performance that customers increasingly demand from mobile networks.”
The NVIDIA AI Aerial platform introduces AI radio access network (AI-RAN) technology for wireless networks in the AI era. This solution is expected to become a critical foundation for optimizing networks at scale, potentially leading to significant total cost of ownership savings for telecom operators while opening new revenue streams for enterprise and consumer services.
Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO of NVIDIAcommented: “AI will reinvent the wireless network and communications industry, moving beyond voice, data, and video to support a wide range of new applications such as generative AI and robotics. NVIDIA AI Aerial is a platform that unifies communications, computing, and AI.”
One of the most notable features of NVIDIA AI Aerial is its distinction as the first AI-RAN platform capable of hosting both generative AI and RAN traffic, while integrating AI into network optimization. This versatile approach delivers high-performance, low-power software-defined RAN, enhanced network experiences, and new revenue opportunities from edge AI applications.
Börje Ekholm, President and CEO of Ericssonsaid: “Ericsson is delighted to contribute to the Joint AI-RAN Innovation Center, which aims to drive standardization, industry alignment and accelerate the adoption of AI-RAN technologies. This opens the door to potentially limitless innovations in network performance, reliability and efficiency.”
This collaboration aims to significantly improve customers’ real-world network experience and meet the growing demand for faster speeds, lower latency, and increased reliability needed for the latest gaming, video, social media, and augmented reality applications. AI-RAN will leverage billions of data points to design algorithms that determine optimal network adjustments for maximum performance and predict capacity in real time where customers need it.
Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO of Nokiaexplained: “AI is a game changer for all industries, but particularly in telecommunications, where it will revolutionize networks and enable a variety of new applications.
“We look forward to collaborating on new AI-RAN innovations to transform network security, performance and efficiency to drive cost savings in network operations and increase monetization opportunities for operators.”
The AI-RAN Innovation Center will further accelerate the mission of AI-RAN Alliancewhich was announced in February 2024 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The alliance aims to improve mobile network efficiency, reduce energy consumption and modernize existing infrastructure to open new economic opportunities for telecommunications companies through AI, enabled by 5G and paving the way for global leadership in 6G.
The collaboration between NVIDIA, T-Mobile, Ericsson and Nokia could play a central role in shaping the future of wireless networks and opening up new possibilities for AI-powered services across industries.
(Photo by Alina Grubniak)
See also: The era of AI dawns for data centers with Nokia’s EDA platform
Want to learn more about AI and Big Data from industry leaders? Check AI and Big Data Exhibition will take place in Amsterdam, California and London. This comprehensive event is co-hosted with other premier events including Intelligent Automation Conference, BlocX, Digital Transformation WeekAnd Cybersecurity and Cloud Expo.
Check out other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars hosted by TechForge here.
