AI-RAN Alliance reaches 132 members, announces 33 Innovation Demos, and launches three new Industry Blueprints, signaling rapid industry adoption of Artificial Intelligence into the Radio Access Network (RAN)

The AI-RAN Alliance today announced a major growth milestone, reaching 132 members worldwide, welcoming new Board Members including Qualcomm, SK Telecom, and Vodafone, and accelerating delivery of AI-native RAN innovation at a global scale. At MWC 2026, the Alliance will present 33 AI-driven innovation demonstrations and unveil four new industry blueprints. These will highlight how AI can be integrated into the Radio Access Network (RAN) to enhance wireless networks making them more intelligent and also demonstrate how the network will support AI applications and foster new ways of innovations.

In under two years, the Alliance has become a leading platform for software-defined and AI-native network innovation, uniting operators, technology partners, universities, and research labs worldwide. Its working groups covering AI-for-RAN, AI-and-RAN, AI-on-RAN; task group, such as Data-for-AI; and the shared labs are accelerating benchmarking, delivering reference designs researched collaboratively by industry and academia.

From Proof to Practice

The 33 demos at MWC will show how AI is now embedded across every layer of the Network, from the RAN physical layer to orchestration and edge applications.

• AI‑for‑RAN: Leveraging AI to optimize the RAN’s performance, from radio signal processing to network operations and automation, to deliver faster speeds, better coverage, lower energy consumption, and efficient use of radio resources.
• AI‑and‑RAN orchestration: End‑to‑end AI control that places workloads on shared compute based on cost and performance targets, cutting operational complexity.
• AI-on-RAN: Deploying AI workloads directly on mobile network infrastructure, enabling advanced applications at the network edge. By bringing AI capabilities closer to the user, we enable low-latency applications, real-time AI inference, and new use cases that were previously impossible.
• Agentic RAN & large telco models: How agentic AI frameworks can autonomously interpret operator intents and optimize RAN operations in distinct scenarios using Large Telco Models.
• Digital twins: Virtual replicas of radio networks used to train and test AI before live deployment.

Together, they reflect a clear shift from experimentation to AI-native RAN implementations.

Expanding Global Collaboration and Policy Alignment

The Alliance is expanding its technology and innovation collaborations globally, welcoming Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) as a new member, while advancing AI-RAN commercialization through its collaboration with South Korea’s AI Network Alliance (AINA), supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT). This collaboration aims to support the development of use cases and facilitate the contribution of trial results to the relevant AI-RAN Alliance Working Groups. It also encompasses the promotion of vendor lab tests focused on performance and efficiency.

New Industry Blueprints to Accelerate Deployment

The Alliance has released four foundational publications defining the key building blocks of AI-powered 5G and 6G networks, providing guidance for implementation. These include:

1. An AI-RAN Reference Architecture framework outlining a high-level AI‑native RAN design, including major functional domains and main components.
2. A report summarizing the latest AI/ML techniques and models for improving RAN performance from link‑level optimizations to network‑wide automation.
3. A document defining AI-RAN platform and infrastructure orchestration for managing AI and RAN workloads to dynamically optimize resource efficiency and ROI, while ensuring strict RAN performance
4. A white paper that explains how AI‑on‑RAN enables differentiated, monetizable connectivity for mobile‑native AI applications.

Together, these publications establish architectural foundations and operations strategies needed to transform the RAN into a multi-purpose platform, helping operators accelerate innovation from research to real-world deployment and the introduction of predictable, premium-differentiated connectivity essential for AI-native applications.

Industry Alignment, Real‑World Impact

Dr. Alex Jinsung Choi, Principal Fellow of SoftBank Corp.’s Research Institute of Advanced Technology and Chair of the AI-RAN Alliance, commented: “These milestones reflect the growing recognition that AI-native RAN is no longer experimental, it is foundational to the future of wireless networks. With 132 members, active global collaborations and demonstrations, the Alliance is turning innovation into impact and accelerating the path to commercial deployment. The industry is aligning and we’re delivering partnerships that will deliver value to stakeholders worldwide.”

MWC 2026

The Alliance will make its exhibitor debut at Mobile World Congress 2026 in Hall 2 (Booth #2E45). It will run 33 multi-member AI-RAN demonstrations across the four-day event, offering insights into real-world performance improvements, energy-and-spectral-efficiency gains and automation breakthroughs across 5G-Advanced and 6G-ready AI-native networks.

For more information, visit: https://ai-ran.org

Notes to Editors:

About the AI-RAN Alliance

The AI-RAN Alliance is a global consortium accelerating the integration of artificial intelligence into Radio Access Networks. Established in 2024, the Alliance unites leading companies, researchers, and technologists to advance open, practical approaches for building AI-native wireless networks. The Alliance focuses on enabling experimentation, sharing knowledge, and real-world performance to support the next generation of mobile infrastructure. For more information, visit: https://ai-ran.org.

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