Qualcomm Technologies joined the Open Centralized Unit Distributed Unit (OCUDU) Ecosystem Foundation, with Doug Knisely, senior director for technical standards at Qualcomm, set to join the group's governing board as part of its participation.

The OCUDU is focused on open radio access network (RAN) centralized unit and distributed unit (CU/DU) implementations, targeting reference architectures, validation frameworks, and ecosystem collaboration to support software-defined wireless networks at scale.

The group unveiled its OCUDU technical project last year as part of a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD) Future G office and wireless technology makers DeepSig and Software Radio Systems (SRS).

"Qualcomm Technologies' leadership in wireless and deep expertise across the RAN ecosystem make the company a powerful addition to the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation," Arpit Joshipura, GM of networking, edge, and IoT at the Linux Foundation, said of the new participant. "The company's participation as a premier member, along with Doug Knisely joining the governing board, reinforces the growing industry commitment behind open, interoperable CU/DU innovation and the importance of collaborative development as operators and vendors work to scale next-generation 5G and early 6G infrastructure."

Qualcomm joins fellow "premier partners" including AMD, AT&T, Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, SoftBank, and Verizon, as well as 60 general and associate members. Fellow chipmaker Nvidia joined the venture in March in a bid to expand its AI-RAN footprint in 6G technology development.

Qualcomm is also a member of The AI-RAN Alliance, a move that ABI Research suggested would involve "a passive observational role" in that venture.

"The company will have two major choices to exercise its usual stimulus on the integration of AI within the edge, the RAN infrastructure in particular," ABI Chief Research Officer Malik Saadi said of Qualcomm's AI-RAN Alliance motives. "It will have to either form an alternative alliance to maintain strategic influence or leverage its position in the O-RAN Alliance, noting that its recent Dragonwing RAN Automation Suite demonstrates capability in AI-powered RAN solutions."