7 Layers: 5G Open Innovation Lab Links Edge Ecosystem Opportunities

The 5G Open Innovation Lab is looking to help telecommunication operators and enterprises tap into the rapidly growing cloud and software developer ecosystem they know they need to tap into to reach their digital transformation goals. Jim Brisimitizis, general partner at 5G Open Innovation Lab, explained that these efforts involve his organization acting as a central contact point between these industry segments, a task lightened by the group’s list of big-name segment players. The 5G Open Innovation Lab was established in early 2020, and included founding partners Intel, NASA, and T-Mobile US. That group selected 17 start-up companies as initial members of its 12-week program that allowed them to tap into industry and financial resources to help them design and develop 5G and edge applications targeted at enterprise digital transformation goals. Brisimitizis noted this work is most transformational for communication service provider (CSPs) that could be most challenged by this cloud evolution. “The lab was really born from the standpoint of exposing the CSP markets to a very vibrant and always moving software development ecosystem, i.e. startups. Expose them to a network of fairly large global platforms like Microsoft, and VMware, and Dell, and Intel, and Amdocs, and others, and then also exposing them to a set of enterprises who are on these digital transforming journeys,” Brisimitzis said. “And by exposing them they see both the opportunity, they see both how their networks could potentially integrate into the fabric of IT platforms from around the world, i.e. the partners that we have, and then they would see that demand from the enterprises too.” The group’s timing also aligns with the broader industry trend of migrating network resources to a cloud environment using cloud-native principles like containers that can better serve 5G-based edge use cases. “The timing is coming more in line with the opportunity than it was in the past,” Brisimitzis said. “In the past, where it was simply co-hosting or colocating of server infrastructure, power, cooling, and connectivity, is now surpassed to a function of, hey, software development is going in one direction, the cloud’s already a foregone conclusion, it's here to stay, the edges is going to be real. There's a whole slew of use cases that are going to require more and more proximity computing, i.e. edge, and the carriers have two really important ingredients in that mix. They have real-estate locations and they have spectrum.” Listen to more of Brisimitzis’ insight into this 5G and edge opportunity for telecom operators and vendors in the latest episode of the SDxCentral 7 Layers podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices