As the AI-RAN Alliance grows to 100 members, and announces Vodafone as its newest operator member, there is still some confusion in the market about exactly what AI-RAN is for, how it is different from or builds on the existing applications of AI in the RAN, and how it relates to 6G development?
Not only that, but some see it as only about developing a high performance, multi-purpose RAN compute platform that can be monetised externally.
So what does AI-RAN mean, are these misconceptions, and what do those developing the AI-RAN hope to achieve? TMN asked the experts at Nokia, who are shaping its work in AI-RAN, to explain.
Ari Kynäslahti is Vice President of Strategy & Technology and CTO at Nokia Mobile Networks. Aji Ed is Head of Partner Cloud RAN Solutions, Nokia.
In this video, Kynäslahti defines the work of the AI-RAN Alliance, and how AI-RAN relates to 6G. Ed tells us how Nokia is developing its work in AI-RAN.
One thing that is clear is that AI-RAN, as Nokia sees it, is about far more than running RAN workloads on GPU-based platforms.
AI, Kynäslahti says, is all over the network – it’s about a lot more than GPUs.
