T-Mobile US, Nvidia take the AI-RAN initiative

• T-Mobile US, Nvidia, Ericsson and Nokia are jointly investing in an AI-RAN Innovation Centre
• The facility will be based at T-Mobile US’s headquarters campus in Bellevue, Washington
• The partners will develop mobile network systems based on AI functionality, “revolutionising the capabilities of radio access networks”  
• The end results “will make the promises of Open RAN more viable, while also going beyond”, they claim
• The move signals a shift in mobile network innovation, with traditional RAN vendors along for the ride but not driving the initiative

Graphics processing unit (GPU) giant Nvidia has continued its artificial intelligence (AI) incursion into the radio access network (RAN) sector by teaming up with T-Mobile US and the telco’s long-standing mobile network system suppliers Ericsson and Nokia to enter into a new “technology partnership” and invest in an AI-RAN Innovation Centre located at T-Mobile’s headquarters campus in Bellevue, Washington. 

According to the partners, the move, announced during T-Mobile US’s capital markets day, is a bid to bring RAN and AI innovation “closer together”, “revolutionise” RAN capabilities and “serve customers in unprecedented ways”.

It’s not the first time that the four companies have crossed AI-paths in the RAN. Back in February, on the first day of Mobile World Congress 2024, they were unveiled as among the founding members of the AI-RAN Alliance. Nvidia was widely seen then as instigating the new industry grouping, and it’s hard not to believe – given its AI GPU muscle and know-how – that it’s not playing a similar leadership role at the brand new AI-RAN Innovation Centre (despite T-Mobile being given announcement honours).

Boost for Open RAN and 5G Advanced

Nvidia brings to the AI-RAN Innovation Centre its newly unveiled ‘AI Aerial’, which it claims is the world’s first AI-RAN platform capable of hosting generative AI and RAN traffic, as well as integrating AI into network optimisation. For further detail on AI Aerial, see Nvidia ramps up its AI-RAN play.

The new platform comes with the promise of developing more 5G Advanced features with T-Mobile partners, as well as “enhancing” Open RAN and providing sufficient hardware horsepower to enable high-workload virtualisation that might just realise the holy grail of highly programmable software-based RANs.

“This partnership aims to show that AI-RAN will make the promises of Open RAN more viable, while also going beyond,” asserted the partners in this press release. “AI-RAN is a game-changing technology because it will enhance the current Open RAN architecture with the addition of the accelerated computing that GPUs can bring to the intense network processing workloads of the future,” they added. 

T-Mobile, unlike its parent Deutsche Telekom, has kept only a watching brief on Open RAN, preferring not to get its hands dirty with numerous pilots and trials. This may change if AI-RAN can deliver.  For its part, Deutsche Telekom top brass at Bonn headquarters will no doubt be monitoring closely the AI-RAN developments in Bellevue as it advances its own Open RAN strategy.

“Just like T-Mobile led in 5G, we intend to lead in the next wave of network technology, for the benefit of our customers,” boasted T-Mobile US CEO Mike Sievert. “AI-RAN at T-Mobile will be all about unlocking the massive capacity and performance that customers increasingly demand from mobile networks. AI-RAN has tremendous potential to completely transform the future of mobile networks, but it will be difficult to get right. That’s why T-Mobile is jumping in now to help lead the way with our partners.”

While Ericsson and Nokia appear to be backseat players in the latest AI-RAN initiative steered by Nvidia, it did not stop their respective CEOs from tapping the shoulder of the GPU powerhouse to give at least an outward show of approval.  

“Ericsson is excited to contribute to the joint AI-RAN Innovation Centre, which is set to drive standardisation, industry alignment, and accelerate the adoption of AI-RAN technologies,” remarked Börje Ekholm, Ericsson’s CEO.

Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark seemed slightly more reserved in his praise, however.  “Our US-headquartered Nokia Bell Labs is leading our global AI research so it is a natural fit to extend our partnership with T-Mobile on the development of their AI-RAN Innovation Centre in Bellevue, Washington,” he said.

- Ken Wieland, Contributing Editor, TelecomTV