5G Factor: AI Rising! Qualcomm’s Hybrid AI Vision, Nokia Puts the AI in AirScale, and NVIDIA Softbank Pair Up for Gen AI & 5G Apps

In this episode of The 5G Factor, our series that focuses on all things 5G, the IoT, and the ecosystem as a whole, The Futurum Group's Ron Westfall and Clint Wheelock take a look at the top 5G developments and what’s going on that caught our eye. Their discussion centers on: Qualcomm: The Future of AI is Hybrid. Qualcomm sees wireless and AI as two technologies that will synergistically fuel future innovations, including especially across the 5G ecosystem. For two generations now, Qualcomm has used AI to enhance modem-RF system performance across its Snapdragon Modem-RF systems. Ron and Clint explore how AI can play an integral role in powering end-to-end wireless system design in key areas such as energy savings optimization, network load balancing, and device mobility management and why the 5G Advanced era provides the foundation to deliver a standardized wireless AI framework to deliver new breakthrough applications. Nokia Unveils Airscale Baseband Capabilities That Bring AI to Mobile Networks. Nokia launched baseband capacity cards powered by ReefShark SoC technology, including Levante for ultra-performance and Lodos for high-performance aimed at 5G Advanced capabilities, as well as the Ponente 5G Advanced baseband control card, Pandion Multiband Remote Radio Heads, Shikra outdoor & indoor small cells, and the MantaRay intelligent network management and optimization solutions portfolio using AI-driven MantaRay Energy to optimize energy consumption in mobile networks. Ron and Clint assess why the new AI-infused AirScale portfolio boosts Nokia’s O-RAN and Cloud RAN proposition and 5G Advanced readiness. NVIDIA Softbank Collaborate on Gen AI and 5G/6G Apps. NVIDIA and Softbank are collaborating on a platform for generative AI and 5G/6G apps based on the NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip in support of Softbank’s plans to roll out at new, distributed AI data centers across Japan. The platform will use the new NVIDIA MGX reference architecture with Arm Neoverse-based GH200 Superchips, and is expected to improve performance, scalability and resource use of application workloads. Ron and Clint evaluate the prospects of the NVIDIA MGX architecture in moving the mobile ecosystem to scale and broaden adoption of wide array of apps such as AI, HPC, and NVIDIA Omniverse.