American tech giant Intel Corp confirmed that it would collaborate with India's top telco Reliance Jio to develop a 5G radio-access network (RAN), among other things, Reuters reports.
The report quoted Intel as saying that it will work on “co-innovations” with Jio for its 5G RAN.
Reliance Jio aims to build 5G networks using software to handle more network functions and tapping similar standard computing equipment used in data centers to run the networks.
Reliance Jio has recently announced it will do co-innovations with Intel in 5G radio and wireless core, and collaborate in other associate areas that include AI, cloud, and edge computing, which will help it as they deploy 5G.
“This is the fruit of that partnership,” Navin Shenoy, executive vice president and general manager of the data platforms group at Intel, told Reuters in an interview. “5G in India is going to be massive, and (Reliance Jio) are doing it in a non-legacy way.”
Dan Rodriguez, Intel corporate vice president, Network Platforms Group said: “Network transformation is critical to unleash the possibilities of 5G and maximize the rise of the edge to create new and better business outcomes for our customers across the globe. As the leading network silicon provider, we have been driving this shift to virtualise the core to access to the edge, and implementing edge computing capabilities with our decade of experience, to power our society’s digital revolution.”
Last year, Intel’s venture capital unit invested $250 million in Reliance Industries Ltd’s Jio Platforms unit to explore areas of technology partnership.
Intel’s decision to invest in software akin to an operating system for its network chips accounted for a part of the growth. The system, called FlexRAN, allows carriers or software firms to write code for 5G networks.
