Ericsson and SoftBank are expanding their joint research to advance AI capabilities in Radio Access Network (RAN) technology.
Since launching their collaboration, they have already reached several notable milestones, including:
- Demonstrating a prototype of Ericsson’s Cloud RAN software running on NVIDIA’s GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip architecture, which features the advanced Grace CPU.
- Designing a new architecture that enables orchestration of both RAN and AI applications on a shared infrastructure.
These developments highlight the potential of integrating AI with RAN to improve network efficiency and capabilities while laying the groundwork for future innovations.
Jawad Manssour, President and Representative Director at Ericsson Japan, said: “The progress in our collaboration with SoftBank reflects our dedication to driving innovation in telecommunications.
“These achievements are important milestones in our effort to provide communications service providers with more efficient and flexible networks.”
The partners are expanding their research to explore several focused areas:
- RAN offloading to GPU: Assessing the feasibility of offloading selected RAN functions to GPUs using NVIDIA’s GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip platform to boost performance and efficiency.
- Prototyping AI and RAN workload orchestration: Integrating SoftBank’s AITRAS orchestrator with Ericsson’s open network management and automation platform to enable smooth orchestration of hybrid AI and RAN workloads.
- Optimizing AI for robotics: Evaluating the best placement of AI computational tasks for robotics use cases by leveraging Ericsson’s compute offloading framework.
Through this expanded partnership, Ericsson and SoftBank aim to accelerate progress not only in mobile networks and RAN technology but also across related industries such as robotics.
Hideyuki Tsukuda, Executive Vice President and CTO at SoftBank, commented: “Building on our previous work, this joint research and development with Ericsson represents a major step toward future network deployments and the evolution of AI-RAN technology.
“We will develop SoftBank’s infrastructure with AI-RAN capabilities and evolve it into a next-generation communication platform that fully supports AI.”
The ambitions of both companies extend beyond their bilateral efforts. Ericsson and SoftBank are founding members of the AI-RAN Alliance, an industry group launched to integrate AI into cellular networks. Introduced at MWC Barcelona 2024, the alliance brings together leading organizations to drive advancements in RAN and mobile network technology.
By collaborating across the industry, members of the alliance aim to create a common roadmap for deploying AI-driven solutions that will advance telecommunications infrastructure globally.
The expanded Ericsson–SoftBank research partnership underscores a shared commitment to unlocking AI’s potential in telecoms. Integrating AI into RAN infrastructure promises more efficient networks, improved user experiences, and new possibilities for emerging technologies.
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