Telstra (ASX: TLS) and Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) have today announced a landmark deployment of high-density microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) for Ericsson's bare metal cloud environment, also known as Cloud Native Infrastructure Solution (CNIS), delivering notable energy efficiency for Telstra’s 5G Core functions.

Central to the deployment is the use of high core densities AMD Genoa processors – which represent the 4th generation of AMD's EPYC family of server processors — on a closed loop liquid-cooled server system, powered by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

Combining AMD’s latest generation of processors with HPE’s closed-loop liquid cooling system represents another major technological leap for Telstra’s private cloud infrastructure. This method significantly reduces the overall cooling requirement of the system compared to traditional air cooling, especially in high-load situations.

Telstra and Ericsson used the new hardware to host containerised workloads for Ericsson’s Packet Core Gateway and Packet Core Controller applications — both key elements of the Ericsson dual-mode 5G Core solution, which sits at the heart of Telstra’s 5G Core infrastructure.

In addition to assessing leading-edge technology like liquid-cooled server and high-density processor technology, Telstra and Ericsson are driving broader initiatives to improve energy efficiency on Telstra’s existing infrastructure footprint through different power management features and solutions within Radio Access Network.

The deployment showed the combined benefits of the hardware infrastructure solution, Ericsson’s Cloud Native Infrastructure solution and Ericsson’s Packet Core Gateway and Packet Core Controller solutions, demonstrating up to 49% less energy consumption.

Shailin Sehgal, Executive Network Applications and Cloud, says: “Telstra’s partnership with Ericsson has delivered no shortage of innovation over the past several years with over 50 World Firsts since the start of 3G. Our latest deployment of Ericsson 5G Core functions using next-generation AMD processors on liquid-cooled infrastructure has the potential to deliver a step-change in performance and efficiency — one that will benefit individuals and businesses throughout Australia. Perhaps most importantly, this new milestone provides us with tangible progress towards contributing to achieving our T25 climate goals.”

Emilio Romeo, Head of Ericsson, Australia and New Zealand, says: “This landmark deployment once again shows that Ericsson is at the vanguard of energy efficient innovation. Our work with Telstra is ushering in a new era of performance and energy efficiency — one based on the capability of Ericsson's Cloud Native Infrastructure. This technology is an important milestone for delivering greater sustainability for the 5G mobile telecommunications infrastructure that millions of Australians rely on every day.”