Kuwait City and Tokyo – Rakuten Symphony and Zain Kuwait have announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will see the organizations collaborate on a pilot project to establish a functional cloud-native Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) in the country. Zain Kuwait will utilize Rakuten Symphony’s ORAN and Cloud portfolio to deliver 5G Standalone sites as part of a project that will represent Kuwait’s first Open RAN deployment.  

The project will be the initial phase for planned large scale commercial deployment of Open RAN in Kuwait and across the Zain Group, which operates in eight countries across the Middle East and North Africa region.  

As part of the project, Rakuten Symphony will supply its innovative Open RAN virtualized Distributed Unit and Centralized Unit software, along with cloud-native virtualized software, as well as ensuring that its Open RAN solution is fully functional and capable of handling commercial traffic. Zain Kuwait will allocate the required cell sites as well as providing data center infrastructure and 5G SA core with related transport connectivity.  

Sharad Sriwastawa, President, Rakuten Symphony, said, “Rakuten Symphony is pleased to support Zain Kuwait in delivering the country’s first Open RAN deployment. By venturing into networks driven by cloud-native, open principles and leveraging Rakuten Symphony’s proven portfolio, Zain Kuwait has the potential to realize the benefits of increased operational flexibility and reduced time to market, in turn delivering better performance for customers.”

Daaij Al-Oud, Chief Technical Officer, Zain Kuwait, said, “This collaboration with Rakuten Symphony marks a significant step in our journey to transform Kuwait’s telecom infrastructure. By piloting the country’s first cloud-native Open RAN deployment, we aim to unlock new levels of network agility, efficiency, and scalability. This initiative is not just a technological milestone for Zain Kuwait, but a strategic move that aligns with our broader vision of leading digital innovation across the region.”

Rakuten Mobile, in collaboration with Rakuten Symphony, will apply the achievements obtained from the “Research and Development Project of the Enhanced Infrastructures for Post-5G Information and Communication Systems (JPNP20017)”, subsidized by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).