NVIDIA and global telecom leaders to build 6G on open and secure AI-native platforms + Linux Foundation launches OCUDU
- AI-RAN Integration: Shifting from fixed-function hardware to AI-RAN architecture to turn networks into programmable AI infrastructure.
- Architectural Resilience: Implementing open and trusted principles to ensure interoperability, supply-chain security, and rapid innovation cycles.
- Integrated Sensing & Communication: Leveraging AI-native platforms to enable real-time intelligence and decision-making at the network edge.
- Scalability: Addressing the complexity of 6G to support billions of autonomous endpoints that demand higher security and lower latency than current architectures can provide.
The NVIDIA AI Aerial platform is a software-defined, cloud-native framework for building, training, and deploying AI-native 5G and 6G wireless networks. It transitions traditional fixed-function hardware to a programmable, multi-tenant infrastructure that runs both Radio Access Network (RAN) and AI workloads simultaneously on NVIDIA-accelerated computing.
Image Credit: NVIDIA
Quotes:
“AI is driving the largest infrastructure buildout in history, and telecommunications is the next frontier,” stated Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “By building AI-RAN, we are transforming global telecom networks into a ubiquitous AI fabric.”
Allison Kirkby, chief executive of BT Group, said: “Connectivity is the backbone of economic growth, and with this collaboration, we’re helping lay the foundations for a future ecosystem that is intelligent, sustainable and secure. By building on open and trustworthy AI native platforms, we can simplify future technologies like 6G, ensuring they build upon the strengths of today’s 5G networks while still unlocking powerful new capabilities at scale.”
Tim Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG, said: “Best network, best customer experience — that remains our promise. With an open, intelligent and trusted 6G infrastructure, we are laying the foundation for the era of physical AI and unlocking new value for our customers, for industry and for society.”
Arielle Roth, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, and Administrator at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said: “America’s 6G leadership will be critical to our nation’s economic prosperity, national security and global competitiveness. Today’s announcement demonstrates that the United States and our allies and partners around the world are leading in this next-generation technology. We look forward to the next steps from this international industry coalition as they advance and implement their shared 6G vision.”
Jung Jai-hun, president and CEO of SK Telecom, said: “SKT is evolving telco infrastructure to serve as the foundation for the AI era, where connectivity serves as a platform for intelligence and innovation. Together, we can build open, trusted infrastructure that drives a global ecosystem of AI innovation.”
Hideyuki Tsukuda, executive vice president and chief technology officer of SoftBank Corp., said: “Al-native 6G will transform wireless networks into secure, software-defined infrastructure that supports the next wave of global innovation. SoftBank Corp. is driving this innovation with NVIDIA by advancing open and trusted platforms that enable interoperability, resilience and continuous evolution at scale.”
Srini Gopalan, CEO of T-Mobile, said: “We’re at a pivotal moment. In the U.S., we’ve laid the foundation with 5G Advanced and AI-native networks where intelligence lives inside the network. As 6G becomes the backbone of the AI era, telecom will serve as the nervous system of the digital economy, enabling autonomous systems and intelligent industries at scale and unlocking new value for customers and businesses alike. T-Mobile is proud to help define what’s next through deep ecosystem collaboration and sustained innovation.”
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Linux Foundation launches OCUDU:
Separately, the Linux Foundation (LF) today announced the formation of the Open Centralized Unit Distributed Unit (OCUDU) Ecosystem Foundation, an open collaboration hub dedicated to building, scaling, and sustaining the OCUDU technical project assets and leveraging them to establish a foundational reference platform for RAN including AI based algorithms and solutions. The OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation provides a critical mechanism for industry vendors to optimally guide OCUDU development to support 5G and early AI Native 6G services.
The OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation brings together an ecosystem across enterprise, telecom operators, cloud providers, equipment vendors, and research institutions to co-develop and integrate critical components required for 5G and early 6G deployments. This community-driven model complements global standards from 3GPP and O-RAN alliance and industry alliances like AI-RAN alliance. This global effort ensures that innovation, transparency, and interoperability remain at the core of global software-defined RAN evolution.
“By aligning global efforts under the Linux Foundation, we’re building an open, trusted, and secure open source platform to power the next decade of wireless innovation,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge and IoT, at the Linux Foundation. “The OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation represents a key step forward in open source RAN, specifically for CU and DU.”
“This initiative brings the best of the open source model to one of the most critical layers of future wireless: the foundation for an interoperable, software-defined radio access network,” said Dr. Tom Rondeau, principal director for FutureG. “By shifting the maintenance of these common components to a collaborative, open-source project, under neutral governance at the Linux Foundation, we enable our industry partners to focus their resources on the innovative and monetizable technologies that are most effective for the nation. We are building a foundation that enables shared success and accelerates progress for the entire ecosystem. We are looking forward to seeing this approach provide a vital platform for strengthening our relationships and collaboration with our allies and international partners.”
“The key to driving innovation in wireless is to leverage a broad ecosystem of experts in networking, radio software, and emerging AI technologies,” said Joe Kochan, CEO of NSC. “What started with a competitive proposal process to elicit the best technology solutions from among NSC’s large and diverse membership is now expanding under the Linux Foundation, and NSC is proud to continue partnering with both LF and the FutureG team to advance OCUDU development efforts and build the next generation of wireless capabilities.”
References:
Comparing AI Native mode in 6G (IMT 2030) vs AI Overlay/Add-On status in 5G (IMT 2020)
SKT 6G ATHENA White Paper: a mid-to-long term network evolution strategy for the AI era
Dell’Oro: RAN Market Stabilized in 2025 with 1% CAG forecast over next 5 years; Opinion on AI RAN, 5G Advanced, 6G RAN/Core risks
Nokia and Rohde & Schwarz collaborate on AI-powered 6G receiver years before IMT 2030 RIT submissions to ITU-R WP5D
SK Telecom, DOCOMO, NTT and Nokia develop 6G AI-native air interface
Market research firms Omdia and Dell’Oro: impact of 6G and AI investments on telcos
Ericsson goes with custom silicon (rather than Nvidia GPUs) for AI RAN
Dell’Oro: Analysis of the Nokia-NVIDIA-partnership on AI RAN
RAN silicon rethink – from purpose built products & ASICs to general purpose processors or GPUs for vRAN & AI RAN
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Ericsson today announced it has joined the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation as a founding premier member, underscoring its commitment to open innovation in radio access network (RAN) software. Ericsson will hold a seat on the Foundation’s Board of Directors.
OCUDU, an open-source initiative under the Linux Foundation, aims to accelerate U.S. leadership in wireless innovation through a portable, open-source CU/DU software stack supporting next-generation RAN capabilities.
Ericsson will help shape OCUDU’s direction to enable research, experimentation, and ecosystem development alongside operators, government agencies, academic institutions, and technology partners. Ericsson’s participation will focus on contributing architectural guidance, ensuring technology neutrality, and advancing research-driven use cases, building on its experience in world-leading solutions deployed globally across governmental, enterprise, and consumer networks. The company remains dedicated to delivering secure, trusted, and high-performance networks and will leverage its industry-leading expertise to advance an open and interoperable ecosystem defining the progression of 5G and the emergence of 6G toward a 6G/AI intelligent fabric.
OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation will help facilitate dual use of commercial 5G technologies in specific defense applications, meeting the requirements of the U.S. Department of War. Ericsson is dedicated to supporting the U.S. government’s efforts to modernize its infrastructure by transitioning from legacy systems to secure, open, and programmable network architectures. This will ensure technology neutrality, strengthen national security standards, and foster a resilient telecommunications ecosystem where AI-driven capabilities can be deployed at scale.
“The OCUDU Initiative is building the base layer software technology stack upon which 6G and future networks can provide scalable commercial-grade connectivity to the DoW and public network consumers in the U.S. and around the world,” says Dr. Tom Rondeau, Principal Director for the DoW’s FutureG Office. “This vision will be realized in part through the formation of the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation and partnerships with industry leaders like Ericsson, who bring leadership, expertise and experience deploying resilient networks at scale. Through these partnerships, the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation will help guide development of this open, AI-enabled software stack and enable the DoW to rapidly field networks of the future required to establish dominance in battle and the global economic landscape.”
“Ericsson’s decision to join the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation as a founding premier member reflects our long-standing commitment to open innovation and the development of trusted, secure networks,” says Erik Ekudden, Group Chief Technology Officer, Ericsson. “Through this community, we are helping advance a technology neutral open RAN foundation that will accelerate innovation for AI-powered 5G and AI native 6G.”
https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/ericsson-announces-participation-in-the-ocudu-ecosystem-foundation-to-advance-open-secure-and-flexible-network-innovation-302700377.html
Ericsson’s pre-standard live 6G trial by in Texas, powering AI robotics and real-time video streaming
Ericsson Ericsson announced it has successfully completed the world’s first 6G pre-standard over-the-air (OTA) session, marking a major milestone towards commercial 6G networks and reinforcing U.S. leadership in next-generation wireless innovation.
This milestone was achieved on a pre-standard 6G system using a trusted, end-to-end architecture designed to be AI and cloud native. Conducted at Ericsson’s U.S. headquarters in Plano, Texas, the OTA session validates the readiness of key 6G building blocks. The demonstration features radio hardware, RAN Compute, software-defined air interfaces, and cloud platforms. Ericsson’s future-proof software architecture is deployable on multiple hardware platforms, including CPU (Central Processing Units) and GPU (Graphics Processing Units).
This achievement supports the U.S. government’s focus on 6G leadership, including early research, global standards and forward-looking spectrum policy. 6G is a critical infrastructure for national security, economic competitiveness, and AI-driven innovation. Ericsson’s work directly supports those priorities by showing how future networks can deliver secure, high-performance, AI-native connectivity that underpins U.S. economic competitiveness, innovation, and national security.
“Ericsson’s 6G demonstration is an important milestone in next generation wireless innovation, enabled by American ingenuity,” said Howard Lutnick, U.S. Secretary of Commerce. “The Trump Administration will always back our trusted partners, and we are committed to an American designed and operated future of cutting-edge connectivity.”
“6G will be foundational to how artificial intelligence scales across society and will be critical to the national security, economic prosperity, and global competitiveness of the United States,” said Börje Ekholm, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ericsson. “Completing this world’s first live 6G trial in the United States is a tangible proof point that advanced wireless innovation, manufacturing, and research is anchored here – supporting U.S. leadership in next-generation connectivity. We continue to lead innovation alongside the U.S. ecosystem, working with government, partners, operators, enterprises, academia, and startups.”
The 6G trial proves two key capabilities to prepare future networks for AI: powering AI robotics with instant, reliable connections and processing for real-time control; and enabling real-time video streaming. As AI expands beyond smartphones to power robotics, autonomous systems, immersive applications, and industrial automation, wireless infrastructure is becoming a critical layer of the AI stack. 6G networks will be designed to sense, compute, and adapt in real time, enabling consistent low latency, higher uplink capacity, and new classes of AI services that are not possible today.
Ericsson’s OTA milestone demonstrates that these capabilities are moving into system-level reality, positioning the U.S. ecosystem to shape global standards, drive innovation, and lead commercialization of 6G.
Ericsson has operated in the U.S. for more than 120 years and continues to expand its footprint across research, manufacturing, and operations. The company employs more than 6,000 people across the country and operates 12 R&D centers focused on AI, ASIC design, and antenna systems. Its U.S. headquarters in Plano, Texas, serves as a major hub for advanced wireless R&D, standards development, and customer engagement.
Ericsson also currently manufactures advanced 5G radios and RAN Compute systems at its 5G USA Smart Factory in Lewisville, Texas – one of the most advanced telecom manufacturing facilities in the country. Ericsson has invested more than USD 150 million in the factory and is the only manufacturer making telecom equipment at scale in the U.S. The highly automated, 300,000-square-foot facility supports more than 550 U.S. manufacturing jobs and strengthens secure, resilient domestic supply chains. As 6G technology matures, Ericsson plans to build-on this U.S.-based manufacturing foundation to support future deployments.
Technical highlights:
-The system consists of a pre-standard 6G stack with:
-Spectrum in the 7GHz range (Centimeter Wave)
-Carrier bandwidth of 400 MHz
-Performance focus on optimized uplink, enhanced energy efficiency, and maximized spectral utilization
The demonstration leveraged Ericsson radios, baseband platforms, and cloud-native software, and strengthened ongoing contributions to global standard bodies, including 3GPP and Open RAN. Ericsson will continue expanding trials across additional spectrum bands, enabling AI-native capabilities, and collaborating with operators, chipset partners, and the broader ecosystem to accelerate 6G readiness.
https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/us-at-the-forefront-with-worlds-first-live-6g-trial-by-ericsson-in-texas-powering-ai-robotics-and-real-time-video-streaming-302699735.html
Qualcomm assembled a global 6G consortium. NVIDIA aligned operators and vendors around AI inside the RAN. The Linux Foundation put together a coalition for 6G open source, and GSMA launched telecom-specific AI models and network APIs. Operators signed direct partnerships with low-earth-orbit satellite providers to extend coverage beyond terrestrial towers.
Huawei appears in almost none of those initiatives. The largest telecom vendor arrived in Barcelona, presenting its own roadmap around autonomous networks and 5G Advanced. Meanwhile, the alliances shaping the next telecom architecture formed elsewhere.
https://sebastianbarros.substack.com/p/mwc-2026-huawei-the-outcast?r=68qhms