NVIDIA AI Aerial Unveiled to Enhance Wireless Networks and Generative AI Solutions

Communications service providers are moving beyond traditional voice and data services with the introduction of NVIDIA AI Aerial, an AI computing infrastructure designed to optimize wireless networks and meet the demands of next-generation AI. According to an NVIDIA blog post, the platform, which will be released on September 18, 2024, represents a major milestone in the convergence of AI and communications.

Powering Future Networks with AI-RAN

NVIDIA AI Aerial is the world’s first AI-RAN (Radio Access Network) platform that integrates AI into network optimization while hosting generated AI and RAN traffic. AI-RAN delivers a high-performance, energy-efficient, software-defined RAN that enhances network experiences and creates new revenue opportunities through edge AI applications for internal and third-party generated AI solutions.

This technology will serve as the foundation for future multi-purpose networks, leveraging AI-based communication capabilities to meet new demands.

Leveraging NVIDIA AI Aerial for the Telecommunications Industry

The NVIDIA AI Aerial platform offers comprehensive capabilities including high-performance, software-defined RAN, training, simulation, and inference, enabling operators to participate in every phase of the next-generation wireless network, from development to deployment.

Key components of the NVIDIA AI Aerial platform include:

• NVIDIA Aerial CUDA Accelerated RAN: A software library that supports high-performance virtualized RAN workloads on NVIDIA accelerated computing platforms.
• NVIDIA Aerial AI Radio Framework: PyTorch and TensorFlow-based software libraries for developing and training models to improve spectral efficiency and enhance 5G and 6G wireless signal processing. This also includes NVIDIA Sionna, a simulator for neural network-based wireless algorithms.
• NVIDIA Aerial Omniverse Digital Twin (AODT): A system-level network digital twin development platform that supports realistic simulation of wireless systems and integrates software-defined RAN and user equipment simulators.

NVIDIA AI Aerial and AI-RAN Innovation Center

NVIDIA is collaborating with T-Mobile, Ericsson, and Nokia to accelerate AI-RAN commercialization through the AI-RAN Innovation Center. The collaboration aims to integrate RAN and AI innovations to deliver transformative network experiences to customers.

Tommy Witto, President of Mobile Networks at Nokia, said: “AI-RAN will revolutionise the telecom industry, and the AI-RAN Innovation Center will drive industry collaboration. By bringing together leading companies in telecom and AI, we can unleash the potential of AI in networks, improving performance, reducing costs and creating new opportunities for our customers.”

Fredrik Jejdling, EVP and Head of Business Area Networks at Ericsson, added: “Ericsson has invested in our AI-RAN solutions to enable communications service providers to deploy portable RAN software across multiple platforms. We are now evaluating the performance and cost of NVIDIA accelerated computing in this context.”

NVIDIA AI Aerial Ecosystem

NVIDIA AI Aerial’s growing ecosystem includes key partners such as Softbank and Fujitsu. Ansys and Keysight are leveraging NVIDIA Aerial Omniverse Digital Twin for testing and simulation, while organizations such as Deepsig, ETH-Zurich, Northeastern University, and Samsung are collaborating on 6G research and NVIDIA Aerial AI Radio Frameworks.

Cloud stack software vendors such as Aarna Networks, Canonical, Red Hat, and Wind River, networking stack vendors such as Arrcus, and server infrastructure vendors such as Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Supermicro are important partners. Edge solution vendors such as Vapor.io and system integrators such as World Wide Technology with its AI Proving Ground are accelerating AI solution decision making.

Learn more NVIDIA AI Aerial

Image source: Shutterstock