T-Mobile has announced a partnership with NVIDIA, Ericsson, and Nokia to advance the future of mobile networking with artificial intelligence (AI) at its core.  

The collaboration aims to revolutionise radio access networks (RAN), enhancing customer experiences with improved speed, reduced latency, and reliability for advanced applications.  

The companies, as founding members of the AI-RAN Alliance, are establishing an AI-RAN Innovation Center in Bellevue, Washington. 

As part of the initiative, the consortium will leverage T-Mobile’s 5G capabilities, NVIDIA’s AI Aerial platform, and the telecommunications expertise of Ericsson and Nokia.  

The AI-RAN Innovation Center is dedicated to integrating RAN and AI to deliver transformative networking solutions.  

AI-RAN will utilise billions of data points to create algorithms for optimal network adjustments and predict real-time capacity needs, thereby enhancing network experiences for customers. 

AI technology will not only enhance RAN performance and automate operations but is also expected to empower mobile network infrastructure to manage third-party AI application workloads at the network edge.  

The envisioned AI-RAN cloud-based multipurpose network is expected to support traditional telecom workloads and AI workloads, offering AI as a Service.  

This will allow access to AI capabilities within T-Mobile’s network without dedicated infrastructure, T-Mobile explained.  

The partnership promises increased network capacity, energy efficiencies, and improved resiliency, enabling the platform to support voice, video, data, and new generative AI applications.  

It will also facilitate AI-powered contextual decisions on network performance and traffic routing.  

T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said: “AI-RAN has tremendous potential to completely transform the future of mobile networks, but it will be difficult to get right. That is why T-Mobile is jumping in now to help lead the way with our partners.  

“This collaboration between T-Mobile, NVIDIA, Nokia and Ericsson will truly define what is next in mobile networks in the 5G Advanced era and beyond, and drive real progress where it is needed.” 

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said: “AI will reinvent the wireless communication network and industry — going beyond voice, data, and video to support a wide range of new applications like generative AI and robotics. NVIDIA AI Aerial is a platform that unifies communications, computing and AI.” 

In a separate move, T-Mobile has collaborated with OpenAI to develop an AI-powered customer service platform, IntentCX, set to be integrated into T-Mobile’s operations by 2025.