NVIDIA and Google to establish first AI-on-5G innovation lab

• NVIDIA is assembling partners to support its "AI everywhere" vision
• Google Cloud is extending its Anthos application platform to the network edge enabling both 5G services and applications to be delivered from there
• NVIDIA sees O-RAN Allance standards as key to the whole effort

NVIDIA says it's partnering with Google Cloud to establish the industry’s first AI-on-5G Innovation Lab so that  its software partners can develop, test and adopt solutions that will drive AI ‘smartness’ into cities, factories and other likely 5G adoption areas. 

It says Google Cloud is extending its Anthos application platform to the network edge, enabling service providers and enterprises to easily and rapidly deliver new 5G services and applications from the edge using Anthos and kubernetes. 

NVIDIA also used the opening day of MWC to announce that it would support ARM-based CPUs on the AI-on-5G platform. NVIDIA is currently trying to get its proposed merger with ARM past the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) amid objections from some big tech companies (and others) that the move might put it in a position to control the supply of critical technology to rivals. However, Nvidia has also received expressions of support from ARM customers, Broadcom, Mediatek and Marvell Technology, according to Bloomberg. The CMA has yet to decide on the merger.

NVIDIA has been busy teaming up with a range of companies, indicating its ambition to play a major role in the fast evolving edge and cloud ecosystem. Essentially that seems to boil down to an ambition to make AI available ‘everywhere’ across 5G. It announced in April that in addition to Google Cloud it had forged relationships with Fujitsu, Mavenir, Radisys and Wind River to develop solutions for the AI-on-5G platform . 

Google Cloud says its collaboration with NVIDIA on the innovation lab will provide the necessary infrastructure required for a consistent platform, enabling customers to build and deploy enterprise-grade, containerized applications faster with managed Kubernetes in the cloud, on premises and at the network edge. 

Plus the platform will be able to handle both 5G and edge AI computing, thus allowing for the creation of high-performance 5G RAN and AI applications to manage precision manufacturing robots, automated guided vehicles, drones, wireless cameras, self-checkout aisles and hundreds of other transformational projects.

NVIDIA sees its alignment with the O-RAN Alliance (also adopted by several of its collaborators) as key to the ‘AI everywhere’ effort. It says such collaboration ensures that operators can use the same computing infrastructure required for 5G networking to provide AI services across enterprise, industrial and consumer use cases. 

“In this era of continuous, accelerated computing, network operators are looking to take advantage of the security, low latency and ability to connect hundreds of devices on one node to deliver the widest range of services in ways that are cost-effective, flexible and efficient,” said Ronnie Vasishta, senior vice president of Telecom at NVIDIA . “With the support of key players in the 5G industry, we’re delivering on the promise of AI everywhere.”