Enterprise 5G and AI Must Be Built on Collaboration: The Role of QCT’s 5G x AI Open Lab

By Pablo Tomasi, Principal Analyst, Local Networks, Omdia

This piece of Omdia Commissioned research was commissioned by QCT and Intel

Collaboration is pivotal to realize enterprise 5G and AI

As 5G matures with high demand coming from a multitude of industries, it is important for the whole 5G ecosystem to come together to help industries understand why they need 5G and what they can accomplish with it. 5G is growing and in the first quarter of 2022, 5G accounted for 91% of all announcements  according to Omdia Private LTE and 5G Networks Tracker 1Q22. Furthermore, 60% of all publicly announced private network rollouts were implementing 5G as their main technology.

QCT is evolving its 5G Open Lab, which was jointly launched with Intel^® in Taiwan in 2021, turning it into a 5G and AI Open Lab with the goal of accelerating collaboration between partners and enterprises creating innovative use cases by combining 5G and AI.

Co-creation with ecosystems will deliver on the enterprise 5G and AI promise

QCT 5G x AI Open Lab serves the double purpose of co-creating and joining in technical development with partners while at the same time expanding outreach and education into the enterprise world.

The lab provides a testing area with QCT end-to-end infrastructures supported by an advanced AI & HPC converged system, allowing partners to engage with HPC and AI workloads in a single environment, reducing system complexity and improving efficiency. For 5G, it provides QCT commercial-ready Enterprise 5G solutions powered by Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, including a validated high-availability core network and a radio access network with flexible system configuration, featuring the Intel® Ethernet Network Adapter and Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) for accelerated networking performance to fulfill diverse coverage and capacity requirements. Moreover, in RAN architectures that support RRU with frequency bands n78 and n79. The ability to support multiple spectrum bands in a lab is essential, given the fact that different countries provide different spectrum bands for enterprises.

The benefits of 5G can be augmented by testing and developing 5G use cases with other technologies such as AI; combining these technologies will propel the market forward. Examples of 5G x AI use cases cover areas such as facility production, environment, and equipment for industries such as manufacturing and healthcare. Use cases created and tested in the lab include digital twin, MR assembling, virtual fence, 5G positioning, predictive maintenance, and AI in data centers.

Alongside use case creation, another key element of a lab is the ability for enterprises and partners to showcase the use cases that they have developed, and QCT 5G and AI Open Lab provides a dedicated area where partners can showcase their efforts.

The outreach to the enterprise must be global

Since not all enterprises interested in enterprise 5G may have the opportunity to travel to a lab due to the still challenging international travel conditions, providing virtual support is another key feature of the lab. To help educate enterprises and partners on a global scale, the QCT 5G x AI Open Lab provides a live streaming room enabling collaboration between teams and partners in different parts of the globe. Digital support also takes the shape of educational webinars, trainings, and a demo service.

QCT understood that an in-person, but also digital approach is key to help creating a winning ecosystem. The company has plans to continue expanding its effort to educate the market and create an enterprise 5G ecosystem by launching 5G x AI Open Labs in other key regions such as the US and Germany, in a move that is critical to help the expansion of the market that will also spread enterprise knowledge and increased trust in private 5G and AI.

For more information join QCT and Telecoms.com for our webinar Enterprise 5G and AI Must Be Built on Collaboration: The Role of QCT 5G x AI Open Lab on 26 July at 9:00am BST. Click here to find out more.