No sooner did we publish an article outlining all the known vendors in AT&T’s virtualization efforts, when the service provider named another one: Intel.

AT&T will work with Intel to optimize packet processing efficiency at the chip level for its AT&T Integrated Cloud (AIC).

Its AIC runs open source software on hardware powered by Intel chips. AT&T hasn’t said what kind of hardware populates its AIC data centers, whether it is a particular vendor’s or white box.

In a blog posting today, AT&T’s chief technology officer Andre Fuetsch, said the service provider is also working on its network functions virtualization (NFV) roadmaps to speed its network transformation.

“Open source groups like OpenStack, OPNFV, OpenDaylight, ON.lab, OpenContrail, the Open Compute Project, and others are vital to us,” says Fuetsch in his blog.

Yesterday, Fuetsch spoke at the 2016 Nomura Media, Telecom & Internet Conference. He predicted that AT&T’s open source Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management, and Policy (ECOMP) platform “will become a disruptor to that old software stack world that many operators are in.”

As far as Intel and AT&T working together, the companies have collaborated for years, most recently on technologies including 5G and drones.

AT&T chief strategy officer John Donovan mentioned the Intel partnership related to NFV today at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, being covered by SDxCentral’s managing editor Craig Matsumoto. Donovan shared the stage with Intel’s Diane Bryant, general manager of the company’s Data Center Group. Apparently they know each other going way back because their talk included a lot of laughs and inside jokes.