T-Mobile completes first AI-RAN call; telcos expand Nvidia network AI

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) announced at GTC Berlin that T-Mobile has completed what the companies describe as the world's first AI-RAN call on a commercial network, conducted in Bellevue, Washington, in collaboration with Nvidia and Nokia. The call ran on commercial Aerial RAN Computer (ARC) servers, Nokia's CUDA-accelerated RAN software and massive MIMO radios, connected to an existing 5G Standalone core and a commercial smartphone.

BT, Deutsche Telekom and Elisa have announced AI-RAN pilots on live networks using Nokia's anyRAN software on Nvidia ARC hardware. BT is planning live trials in Birmingham, England, in 2027. Deutsche Telekom has validated the commercial AI-RAN platform in lab environments in Bonn and Oulu, with field trials also planned for 2027. Elisa completed what Nokia and Nvidia describe as Europe's first AI-RAN field trial, simultaneously running voice, mobile data and video analytics over 5G spectrum on a single ARC platform.

Nine telecom operators across Europe, the Middle East and Africa are building or expanding Nvidia-powered infrastructure. New deployments include CRA in the Czech Republic, etisalat in the United Arab Emirates, Silknet in Georgia and TIM in Italy. Expansions are underway at Cassava in Africa, Deutsche Telekom in Germany, Fastweb + Vodafone in Italy, Kazakhtelecom in Central Asia and Orion Telecom in Serbia.

Nvidia introduced two new ARC hardware configurations — MGX 2U and MGX 4U — powered by Nvidia RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs, with x86 and Nvidia Vera CPU options. Dell Technologies, Quanta Cloud Technology and Supermicro will offer ARC-ready servers.

Nokia and Cisco are integrating Nvidia Nemotron open models into their network automation software. Nokia is incorporating Nemotron into its Autonomous Networks Suite, while Cisco has integrated fine-tuned Nemotron models into its Crosswork AI platform. TCS, BT and NTT DATA are also adopting Nemotron models to build agents for network operations, site inspection and fault remediation, according to the press release.

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