News brief: SoftBank claims AI for RAN breakthrough

Japanese telco SoftBank Corp. says it has developed a “new AI architecture that leverages the high-performance Transformer AI model for wireless signal processing” as part of its AI-RAN R&D efforts. 

SoftBank is one of the main supporters and proponents of AI-RAN, which came to prominence with the formation of the AI-RAN Alliance in early 2024. SoftBank Corp. was one of the founders of the alliance and Alex Choi, principal fellow of the operator’s Research Institute of Advanced Technology, is the industry group’s chair.  

There are three main focus areas for the alliance: AI for RAN – the use of AI tools to improve the performance and efficiency of radio access networks; AI and RAN – the integration of AI and RAN processes on the same underlying infrastructure, so that the resources are constantly being used even if there is no mobile customer activity on the network, though with RAN processes prioritised when there is network activity; and AI on RAN – the development and deployment of AI-enabled applications at the edge of the network that can be delivered over 5G connections. 

The new AI architecture,  developed by SoftBank is specifically related to AI for RAN, with the telco claiming its new development “delivers an approximately 30% improvement in 5G throughput”. 

It stated: “SoftBank successfully demonstrated both real-time operation in a live wireless environment compliant with 3GPP 5G standards and a significant improvement in communication quality. This achievement marks a major step forward for AI-RAN, moving it from the conceptual phase to practical implementation.” 

It added: “In the latest demonstration, the new Transformer-based architecture was run on GPUs and tested in a live Over-the-Air (OTA) environment. In addition to confirming real-time operation, the results showed further throughput gains and achieved ultra-low latency.” 

The full details of what SoftBank achieved and how can be found in this press release. The AI-RAN concept is attracting a lot of attention and discussion and was a major talking point at this year’s MWC25 event in Barcelona, but many mobile operator executives remain skeptical that AI-RAN is a viable architecture in the near term. However, as you’d expect, its supporters – which include Ericsson, Nokia, Nvidia, Arm and T-Mobile US – are keen to argue otherwise, as TelecomTV reported earlier this year. And the AI-RAN Alliance continues to attract new members, including AirHopAI (this week), and Vodafone Group, which joined in July.  

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV