Telecom Infra Project (TIP) announced additional partnerships with Intel and Analog Devices, furthering its recent move to prepare the telecom industry for the metaverse.

Previously the organization had brought on T-Mobile, Microsoft, Telefónica, Meta Platforms, and Sparkle as starting co-chairs of a metaverse-ready networks project group. The team aims to prepare the architectures, APIs, and mechanisms needed for end-to-end network capabilities that can support the immersive applications at scale.

TIP is now bringing in Intel and Analog to focus on a massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) solution for its “beamforming capabilities, concentrate[d] bandwidth to devices," and its "capability to deliver metaverse experiences from a single 5G radio,” according to a press release about the news.

The collaboration will operate under the TIP OpenRAN project group – an initiative to define and construct open-architecture radio access network (RAN) solutions – and will yield a 5G mMIMO open RAN (O-RAN) radio unit (O-RU) white box.

Distributed by Intel and powered by its Intel Agilex, the white box will leverage the company’s beamforming technology and Analog Devices’ RadioVerse System on Chip (SoC) software-defined transceiver.

Ready-to-deploy mMIMO wideband – “conceived as a 32-antenna element wideband standalone radio unit supporting O-RAN interfaces and advanced software applications” – will be equipped to the white box.

The group claims the white box will “open the door to a wider playing field of system integrators, giving operators more options to meet their specific requirements while helping mitigate vendor lock-in.”

TIP stated that no mMIMO solutions with end-to-end capabilities are available, and the partnership intends to change it.

The build further substantiates the significant role 5G is set to play in the technology’s development, according to the organization.