Looking to enhance their existing work in optimising and boosting network efficiency and performance, global comms tech company Ericsson and Japanese IT business and comms operator SoftBank have announced a collaboration to explore converged architectures for artificial intelligence (AI)-based radio access networks (RAN).
Ericsson and SoftBank are among the companies that formed the AI-RAN Alliance, a collaborative effort to integrate AI into cellular technology with the goal of progressing RAN technology and mobile networks.
As part of their project, Ericsson and SoftBank said they would explore common network and compute infrastructure services that allow both AI and RAN to operate on the same network infrastructure, with the ultimate aim being the ability to unlock new use cases for communications service providers by using the power of AI to enhance network efficiency.
The two companies will also jointly conduct techno-economic analyses, develop prototypes and run lab demos to optimise RAN and AI convergence at the edge.
The initiative will also focus on hardware partitioning, workload distribution and software portability across different hardware platforms.
Among the key areas that the companies will jointly explore include optimising AI and RAN convergence, AI and RAN coexistence, and engineering demos.
Specifically, they will look towards optimising architectures to support AI and RAN working together at the edge, with a focus on centralised RAN (C-RAN), including assessing the pros and cons of shared hardware AI and RAN processing.
AI and RAN coexistence will see work on managing hardware and workload sharing between AI and RAN applications, while the engineering demos will test the possibility of running RAN applications and AI engines on the same hardware infrastructure to see how they can share resources.
“We look forward to this collaboration with SoftBank in exploring the potential convergence of AI and RAN infrastructures,” said Fredrik Jejdling, executive vice-president and head of business area networks at Ericsson. “This reaffirms our commitment to innovation and excellence, and we believe it will lead to new solutions that empower communications service providers to build more open, efficient and versatile networks.”
Hideyuki Tsukuda, executive vice-president and chief technology officer at SoftBank Corp, added: “[The company] welcomes this new collaboration with Ericsson, which aligns with our strategy to invest in AI infrastructure that enables the overlay and optimisation of RAN. This partnership reflects our vision of leveraging AI to enhance communication networks and opens up opportunities for collaboration with key industry players.”