AI-RAN Alliance pushes past 130 members as ‘AI-native RAN' takes center stage at MWC

Qualcomm, SK Telecom, and Vodafone join industry group’s board, while coalition demonstrates 33 practical network use cases

The AI-RAN Alliance, the industry coalition looking to integrate AI into the radio access network (RAN), surpassed 130 members with the likes of Qualcomm, SK Telecom and Vodafone joining its board.

The initiative, launched back in 2024, now includes some 132 members, with the group using the hype around AI-RAN at this year’s Mobile World Congress to further its efforts.

On-site in Barcelona, the group demonstrated some 33 demos showcasing how AI can be embedded across every layer of the network, showcasing potential use cases ranging from optimizing radio signal processing and automation to enabling low-latency applications and AI inference at the edge.

“AI-native RAN is no longer experimental; it is foundational to the future of wireless networks,” proclaimed Alex Choi, a principal fellow in SoftBank’s Research Institute of Advanced Technology and chair of the AI-RAN Alliance. “With 132 members, active global collaborations and demonstrations, the Alliance is turning innovation into impact and accelerating the path to commercial deployment.”

In the two years since the group’s formation, AI-RAN efforts have snowballed, with Choi’s own SoftBank among the leading players pushing the concept through myriad partnerships with the likes of Samsung, Ericsson, and Nvidia.

The latter of that trio has also been at the forefront of championing AI-RAN, using its presence in Barcelona to combine its prior 6G AI-Wireless Intelligent Network (AI-WIN) venture with the newly launched Open Centralized Unit Distributed Unit (OCUDU) Ecosystem Foundation, which is looking at streamlining AI efforts to benefit 6G development.

“The industry is aligning, and we’re delivering partnerships that will deliver value to stakeholders worldwide,” added Choi, who previously served in a similar position at the O-RAN Alliance.

AI-RAN was front and center at MWC 2026 beyond the Nvidia-led OCUDU initiative, with Nokia (a founding member of the AI-RAN Alliance), unveiling its new Doksuri radio heads it claims will serve as the “foundational component” of its AI-RAN efforts.

Samsung, meanwhile, used its event showcase to focus on virtualized RAN (vRAN) tests with Vodafone, tapping Intel hardware to power AI-driven applications across 2G, 4G, and 5G networks on a single high-performance server.