- Samsung landed key roles in South Korea’s government-backed AI-RAN push
- The projects will deploy private 5G SA networks in industrial sites to test AI-RAN and physical AI use cases
- Samsung said its role with KT and SK Telecom build on decades-long partnerships
It’s not 6G, but Samsung Electronics is well on its way to providing KT and SK Telecom with AI-RAN solutions to advance physical AI on the path to AI-native 6G.
Samsung Electronics this week announced that it signed contracts with KT and SK Telecom for their AI-RAN projects under the “Hyper AI Network” initiative at the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT). Samsung will be the sole global vendor for KT and the main vendor for SK Telecom.
It’s a big job for Samsung and one that builds on its decades-long partnerships with the country’s leading operators. Samsung noted that it’s the only partner selected for both projects.
The work is set to begin next month and will deploy 5G Standalone (SA) private networks across industrial environments – ranging from shipyards to petrochemical facilities – to validate AI-RAN capabilities and generate real-world insights for future deployments.
Samsung – plus Ericsson, Nokia, HFR
Recon Analytics analyst Daryl Schoolar said he’s not surprised that both mobile network operators are working with Samsung on this project.
“AI-RAN is one of the key 6G capabilities being promoted by the industry. There is hope that AI-RAN will help make 5G use cases scale easier,” he told Fierce.
However, SK Telecom isn’t just working with Samsung, he pointed out. SK Telecom announced in July that it’s working with four manufacturers – including Samsung, HFR, Ericsson and Nokia – to develop and deploy their AI-RAN equipment for the Hyper AI Network.
Robots do the welding
What makes this AI-RAN announcement stand out from others is the trial includes physical AI in the form of robots for welding, Schoolar said.
For the quadruped welding robot use case, Samsung said it will support KT with its software-driven, AI-native solutions. That includes Network in a Server (NIS) – an integrated edge AI platform comprised of virtualized RAN (vRAN), AI core and AI applications – and Samsung CognitiV Network Operations Suite (NOS) for intelligent network automation.
According to Samsung, the quadruped robot can autonomously perceive its working environment and perform precise welding by leveraging 5G connectivity and the edge AI platform.
For those keeping track, Samsung’s NIS runs vRAN and 5G SA core software on an AMD EPYC 8004 Server CPU-powered commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) Compact Edge Server from Supermicro with Wind River Cloud Platform.
Another part of Korea’s Hyper AI Network initiative is SK Telecom’s role in validating physical AI services at SK Incheon Petrochem, a major energy hub for the Seoul metropolitan area.
In that implementation, an autonomous robot will patrol hazardous areas and transfer high-definition videos in real time while on the move, enabling AI analysis to detect potential hazards and facilitate integrated monitoring.
Either way you look at it, it looks as though robots will be doing the heavy lifting while AI-RAN leads the way.
Read more about Samsung and AI-RAN:
Samsung charts its own path to AI-RAN
MWC: Softbank, Nvidia, T-Mobile and more kick off AI-RAN Alliance