Samsung Electronics has announced it's working with Nvidia to advance AI-RAN technologies.
In the vendor's announcement, Samsung noted that the partnership sets out to diversify the computing platforms available.
According to Samsung, the partnership paves the way for the "easy adoption of AI in mobile networks" by expanding the CPU ecosystem and bolstering GPU partnerships.
Late last year, Samsung paired with Nvidia to carry out interoperability tests at Samsung Research's lab. The tests used Samsung's Open RAN-compliant virtualized RAN (vRAN) and Nvidia’s accelerated computing.
And now, the vendor claims to have successfully demonstrated a proof-of-concept to verify how Nvidia's accelerated computing can be seamlessly integrated into software-based networks to help enhance AI capabilities.
Through this, Samsung says it can deliver AI-RAN through the integration of its vRAN (virtualized Distributed Unit, vDU) along with Nvidia's accelerated computing into a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) server where Samsung’s vRAN software is installed.
“While AI is reshaping the telecommunications landscape, Samsung is helping operators to build the right network architecture and environment where AI can thrive, all powered by our proven and AI-powered vRAN,” said June Moon, executive vice president, head of R&D, networks business at Samsung Electronics.
“This collaboration with Nvidia signifies our continued efforts to expand GPU and CPU ecosystem, and we look forward to exploring more possibilities in the future.”
Samsung added that the companies will continue to work together to explore further AI-RAN options that leverage Samsung's vRAN and Nvidia's Grace CPU and/or GPU-based AI platform technologies. All of these are optimal for each network deployment environment - from rural, suburban to dense urban.
Samsung claims its software-based network architecture "is the optimal foundation to easily deploy and adopt AI across every layer of the network."
The vendor said that its work with Nvidia paves the way for utilizing network infrastructure for mobile communications, but also provides the ability to process general workloads. It notes that this can provide a data center-like network architecture that will present new business opportunities.
“AI-RAN is a critical technology that delivers transformative gains in network utilization, efficiency, and performance while enabling new AI services,” said Ronnie Vasishta, senior vice president for telecom at Nvidia.
“Samsung is a frontrunner in AI-RAN development. Their vRAN expertise and software integrated with the Nvidia’s AI accelerated computing will accelerate the path to AI-native wireless networks.”
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