TECHNOLOGY
GTC, the company unveiled partnerships with industry leaders including T-Mobile, MITRE, Cisco, ODC and Booz Allen Hamilton on the R & D of AI-native wireless network hardware, software and architecture for 6G.
“ About a year ago we were one of the founding companies within the AI-RAN Alliance,” Ronnie says.“ In just one year that has grown from 10 founding members to 75 member companies across 17 countries.
“ The first step NVIDIA took was to accelerate Layer1 of the 5G software stack using accelerated compute platforms. Now we are seeing how AI and ML can benefit the spectral and power efficiency of the Radio Access Network,” he adds, discussing the company’ s development efforts in this area.
Around three years ago, the company released Sionna, a differentiable link layer simulator and open-source tool, which has since been downloaded 150,000 times.“ There is a pent-up demand from wireless researchers to demonstrate how AI and ML can enhance or even replace conventional algorithms and techniques,” Ronnie highlights.“ Now wireless networks can learn their environment, be trained, simulated and deployed in a matter of minutes rather than days.
“ The shift from traditional proprietary, single use wireless systems to software-defined, AI-driven, multi-use systems extends benefits across business models, R & D and deployment. We see 6G as a software upgrade, building on these innovations.”
AI and telecoms driving broader change Discussing NVIDIA’ s AI-RAN collaboration announcement at GTC, Ronnie says the revolutionary approach will underpin the journey to effective 6G in the future:“ The industry has recognised that AI is essential for delivering many of the applications touted for 6G, such as immersive or augmented experiences, autonomous vehicles, generative AI agents on mobile devices and instant language translation.
“ This group of leading companies have set out with the mission to build networks with AI infused from the start, unencumbered by legacy, non-AI techniques. These networks will be self-adapting, power efficient and multi-use, and will be developed collaboratively to serve as deployable blueprints.”
Developments like these show the power of AI, and the ability it has to transform industries globally at scale. Looking ahead, Ronnie points to the technology’ s potential for transforming lives on a global scale:“ Democratising wireless research and enabling innovative researchers to directly influence the 6G standards is truly exciting. We know that a host of new AI applications are possible when AI is embedded into the wireless network.
“ This level of change and opportunity has never existed before in the telecoms and related industries. Working with the industry around the world and seeing the innovation possible with the full stack AI building blocks from NVIDIA, it is clear to me that the lives of literally billions of people can be positively impacted. Healthcare, education and agriculture can all benefit from the fusion of AI and telecommunications.”
48 May 2025