Let’s face facts: People are attached to their mobile devices, by one estimate spending one-third of their waking hours on them.

But while each phone or device upgrade provides new capabilities and faster speeds, it comes at a significant sustainability cost for telco providers. One study reports that telecommunications operators account for 2% to 3% of total global energy demand.

To help reverse this trend, Red Hat announced at its Red Hat summit this week a partnership with Intel and Ericsson to achieve 20% power savings in radio access networks (RAN).

This is the first such partnership that Red Hat plans to forge to help organizations improve sustainability, according to Chris Wright, Red Hat’s CTO and SVP for global engineering. The company homed in on the telecom industry and specifically RAN because it is the largest consumer of energy in a 5G network (more than 70%).

The goal of the collaboration, Wright said, is to answer the question: “What if we could optimize and reduce telco service providers' power consumption without losing any performance?”

Red Hat seeks to break the energy curve

Communication service providers (CSPs) and telcos are seeing an incredible growth in data demand, said Eric Parsons, head of Ericsson’s cloud RAN engineering unit. That growth requires drawing more equipment into the network to support capacity.

And energy consumption is only expected to increase among telcos with the implementation of multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) transmission technology and the high level of network densification.

“What we have to do as an industry is to break the energy curve that goes along with that,” said Parsons.

In Ericsson’s case, that involves a combination of numerous hardware and software technologies.

The telco giant has implemented fourth generation Intel Xeon processors with vRAN boost. These deliver up to two times capacity gains with the same power upload compared to the prior generation and lower power consumption by an additional 20%, explained Jeni Barovian Panhorst, VP for network and edge group and GM for the network and edge compute division at Intel.

But software is also required to optimize power consumption without compromising performance. For that, Ericsson leverages the new Intel infrastructure power manager for 5G core, which delivers up to an additional 30% of CPU power savings.

Ericsson is also optimizing usage of P states, or operational states relating to CPU frequency and voltage (the higher the P state, the lower the frequency and voltage that a processor runs).

Intel, for its part, continues to collaborate with the industry to innovate cooling technology such as cold plate and liquid immersion cooling, Barovian Panhorst said. The company is also involved in initiatives including the data center modular system specification in the Open Compute project, an organization that shares designs of data center products and best practices. That particular specification is aimed at improving circularity through modular server design for data centers, telco and edge.

“Specifically in the cloud RAN domain, what we're talking about here is just the start,” said Parsons. “We have to continue to drive new innovative solutions that will allow us to break that energy curve.”

Sustainability: We’re all in it together

Ultimately, Ericsson has a goal to be net zero by 2040 across the complete value chain, Parsons said.

To get there, the company needs to “leverage everything we can bring to the table,” he said, including acceleration technologies, energy-efficient compute and advanced power management driven by AI.

However, he pointed out that “the building blocks that we're using for RAN are really building blocks that are available for everyone. They can cut across a wide range of industries to get the sustainability that we're all looking for.”

Barovian Panhorst underscored the fact that there must be engagement across vendors, service providers, policymakers and others to drive emissions reductions and improve sustainability overall.

“All industries need to focus on carbonizing that energy that we consume,” she said.

That means building networks that are carbon-responsive, and taking advantage of suitable energy storage while combining the powers of edge computing, 5G and AI to transform industries.

“We're all in this together,” said Barovian Panhorst. “Collaboration is absolutely key to achieving the era of sustainable computing.”

Now is the time to innovate

Yesterday’s event focused on several key areas: driving innovation at scale, turning cloud sprawl into cloud strategy, addressing new opportunities at the edge, navigating a shifting security landscape and growing demand for sustainable technology.

All told, Red Hat president and CEO Matt Hicks described in a keynote “this moment of AI for technology — and just how powerful that is.”

But, he added, “we sometimes let the risk of another moment overshadow that; the risk of a recession or an economic downturn.”

It may not feel like the time to drive innovation or make sweeping changes to your company, but “the gift of necessity can actually provide the ideal conditions,” he said. “It's about prioritization.”

When forced to prioritize and make trade offs, inventions are discovered, companies are founded and new technologies are realized, he said.

“We see this as the time to drive innovation, because we hope it'll help you unlock doors.”

Other Red Hat product announcements

At today’s event, Red Hat made several announcements, including a unified management experience in Enterprise Linux as part of Red Hat Insights. This uses the already existing Red Hat hybrid cloud console as a single point of control, according to Stefanie Chiras, Red Hat’s SVP for partner ecosystem success.

The new platform simplifies the management of RHEL across hybrid cloud and provides a more straightforward experience for all users regardless of skill level, she said. New management capabilities include the RHEL Image Builder, which enables the build and rapid deployment of standardized, compliant and optimized OS images from a web browser or cloud.

Additionally, Red Hat Satellite capabilities offer a control plane for managing, patenting and monitoring RHEL at scale, she said. While previously only available on premises, Image Builder and Satellite are now available from a single web interface, and are available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions.

“This allows management capabilities to stretch from your data center to your cloud environment and out to the edge,” said Chiras.

Earlier this week, Red Hat and Dell also announced the Dell Apex cloud platform for Red Hat OpenShift, what the two companies call a turnkey fully integrated on-premises OpenShift platform. This can extend applications and data across the IP landscape and enhance security and compliance, according to the companies.

Furthermore, Red Hat announced enhancements to its software supply chain trust and security tool Sigstore.

6/1/23 at 2:55 pm MT: Story updated from "For that, Ericsson leverages the new Intel infrastructure power manager for 5G core, which delivers up to an additional 3% of CPU power savings." to say "30%" instead of "3%."