Red Hat, a leading provider of open source solutions, and SoftBank today announced a partnership on joint research and development of artificial intelligence (AI) radio access network (AI-RAN) technologies with the aim to boost intelligent, autonomous networks with improved performance, higher resource efficiency and a better user experience.
Red Hat and SoftBank are advancing the integration of high-performing AI technology, running on Red Hat OpenShift, within the radio access network (RAN) infrastructure to enable faster data processing and resource optimization for service providers to achieve enhanced performance, intelligent automation, and enhanced multi-layer security.
This approach helps service providers redefine network operations and unlock new revenue opportunities with scalable, secure management of both virtualized RAN and AI applications on a single, unified platform.
As part of this collaboration, Red Hat and SoftBank are focused on the following:
- Support for AI and RAN functions on Arm architecture for better
- Performance optimization of distributed units (DU) on hardware accelerated Arm architecture
- Development of an orchestrator
Chris Wright, Senior Vice President of Global Engineering and Chief Technology Officer of Red Hat “AI has the potential to revolutionize how service providers operate, and a standardized platform is crucial for cost-effective, efficient and automated operations. Through collaborations like this one, Red Hat and SoftBank are able to help service providers navigate this terrain by making AI easier to develop and deploy from the edge to core to hybrid cloud and back, all on the trusted foundation of Red Hat OpenShift. This joint effort will help service providers leverage AI models in the RAN for streamlined operations, new and exciting applications and more automation than ever before.”
Ryuji Wakikawa, Vice President, Head of Research Institute of Advanced Technology of SoftBank: “AI-RAN’s software foundation serves as a robust RAN platform that not only meets the stringent performance requirements of RAN but also enables seamless AI application integration. We have newly designed and developed the orchestrator specific to the AI-RAN, showcasing our ability to operate this essential component. Our collaboration with Red Hat will accelerate the ongoing evolution of our platform, ensuring rapid advancements and contributing this innovation not just within SoftBank, but to the entire telecom industry.”
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