Samsung Electronics has outlined its approach to artificial intelligence (AI) in the radio access network (RAN), perhaps the most important element of the mobile infrastructure.
Samsung is a founding member and vice chair of the Board of Directors of the AI-RAN Alliance, which classifies the relation of AI to the RAN as “AI-for-RAN, AI-on-RAN, and AI-and-RAN.”
“As the Chair of Working Group 3, my focus is on guiding the industry toward the most impactful applications of AI, both in the current 5G era and as we prepare for the rise of 6G,” wrote Dr. Athul Prasad, chair for the AI-on-RAN Working Group (WG3), in a blog article this week.
“We are exploring how AI can be effectively deployed across the RAN and brought closer to the network edge to deliver substantial benefits. By establishing clear interfaces and performance benchmarks, we are paving the path to the networks of the future that will revolutionize how operators enhance performance, optimize operations, and unlock new business opportunities.”
Samsung, via the AI-RAN Alliance, defines AI-for-RAN as the use of AI in the RAN to improve performance, capacity, and energy efficiency. Samsung’s tools in this category include Energy Saving Manager (ESM), the RAN Speed Optimizer (RSO), the Load Balancing Manager (LBM), the KPI Anomaly Detector (KAD), and the RAN Anomaly Insight (RAI).
The second category, AI-on-RAN, aims to position AI applications closer to the edge by deploying them directly on the RAN. This can enable the development of new services or tap into edge computing to reduce latency and backhaul traffic, the blog post says.
Samsung and the Alliance define AI-and-RAN as “the concurrent use of a combined computer-and-communications system to run both RAN and AI workloads to enhance platform utilization and create new monetization opportunities.”
AI is gaining ground quickly. For instance, earlier this month, Internet exchange firm DE-CIX implemented the first phase of its AI internet exchange (AI-IX). The phase includes 50 AI Inference-as-a-Service and GPU-as-a-service providers and more than 160 cloud on-ramps globally. The company is headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany.
A month earlier, in late August, Lightpath said it would build its regional network in eastern Pennsylvania to AI specifications, its third such regional network buildout unveiled this year.
Also in August, Lumen Technologies said AI demand and multi-cloud architectures has led it to offer 400 Gbps Ethernet and IP services at more than 70 third-party data centers in 15 densely connected metropolitan markets. One more is slated for the upgrade, and others may be added later.
