Telecommunications Providers Embrace AI Computing for Future Networks

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The telecommunications industry is evolving rapidly, shifting from traditional voice and data services to incorporating advanced AI computing infrastructures. These innovations aim to optimize wireless networks and cater to the burgeoning needs of next-generation technologies like generative AI on mobile devices, robotics, autonomous vehicles, smart factories, and the advancements in 5G and beyond.

Today marks the launch of NVIDIA AI Aerial, a comprehensive suite of accelerated computing software and hardware designed to revolutionize the AI radio access network (AI-RAN) technology for wireless networks in this AI-driven era.

This platform is set to become a cornerstone for large-scale network optimization, meeting the demands of a variety of new services. The benefits include considerable cost savings and the opening of new revenue streams for telecom operators in both enterprise and consumer markets.

NVIDIA AI Aerial empowers telecommunications providers to support a diverse range of applications, including teleoperations for manufacturing robots and autonomous vehicles, computer vision for manufacturing and agriculture, logistics, generative AI-driven co-pilots and personal assistants, emerging spatial computing applications, robotic surgery, 3D collaboration, and advancements in 5G and 6G technology.

Driving Future Networks with AI-RAN

NVIDIA AI Aerial stands as the world’s first AI-RAN platform capable of hosting both generative AI and RAN traffic while seamlessly integrating AI into network optimization processes.

AI-RAN offers a high-performance, energy-efficient software-defined RAN, enhancing network experience and unlocking new revenue opportunities through edge AI applications. These applications can host both internal and third-party generative AI solutions.

AI-RAN is fundamental to the multifunctional networks of the future that leverage AI-powered telecommunications capabilities.

Leveraging NVIDIA AI Aerial for the Telecom Sector

The NVIDIA AI Aerial platform provides a comprehensive suite of capabilities, including a high-performance, software-defined RAN, training, simulation, and inference. This enables telecom operators to participate in every phase from development to deployment of next-generation wireless networks.

The platform’s features include:

• NVIDIA Aerial CUDA-Accelerated RAN: This includes software libraries that enable partners to develop and deploy high-performance virtualized RAN workloads on NVIDIA-accelerated compute platforms.
• NVIDIA Aerial AI Radio Frameworks: These include PyTorch- and TensorFlow-based software libraries to develop and train models for enhancing spectral efficiency and adding new capabilities to 5G and 6G radio signal processing. This also includes NVIDIA Sionna, a link-level simulator for developing and training neural network-based 5G and 6G radio algorithms.
• NVIDIA Aerial Omniverse Digital Twin (AODT): A system-level network digital twin development platform that enables physically accurate simulations of wireless systems—from a single base station to an entire city’s network. It incorporates software-defined RAN (Aerial-CUDA Accelerated RAN) and user-equipment simulators, along with realistic terrain and object properties of the physical world.

NVIDIA AI Aerial and the AI-RAN Innovation Center

NVIDIA is collaborating with industry giants T-Mobile, Ericsson, and Nokia to accelerate the commercialization of AI-RAN through the establishment of the AI-RAN Innovation Center. This center leverages the key capabilities of the NVIDIA AI Aerial platform, focusing on merging RAN and AI innovations to deliver transformative network experiences for customers.

Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks at Nokia, stated, “AI-RAN is set to revolutionize the telecom industry, and the opening of the AI-RAN Innovation Center will help to take us on this journey by driving industry collaboration. By bringing together leading companies in the telecom and AI industries, we can unlock the full potential of AI in our networks, improving performance, reducing costs, and creating new opportunities for our customers. We are confident that AI-RAN will be a key driver of innovation in the future, and we are excited to be part of this revolution together with NVIDIA.”

Fredrik Jejdling, EVP and Head of Business Area Networks at Ericsson, added, “Ericsson has invested in our AI-RAN solution, allowing communications service providers to deploy portable RAN software running across multiple platforms. We are now evaluating the performance and cost of NVIDIA accelerated computing in this context.”

The NVIDIA AI Aerial Ecosystem

The ecosystem of NVIDIA AI Aerial continues to grow, with key partners including Softbank and Fujitsu. Companies like Ansys and Keysight are utilizing NVIDIA Aerial Omniverse Digital Twin for testing and simulation systems, while academic institutions and industry leaders such as Deepsig, ETH-Zurich, Northeastern University, and Samsung are collaborating on 6G research and NVIDIA Aerial AI Radio Frameworks.

Cloud stack software providers like Aarna Networks, Canonical, Red Hat, and Wind River, along with networking stack providers such as Arrcus and server infrastructure providers including Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Supermicro, are crucial partners for NVIDIA AI Aerial. Edge Solution providers such as Vapor.io and system integrators like World Wide Technology enhance decision-making for AI solutions through their AI Proving Ground.

For more details, visit the NVIDIA AI Aerial page.

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