MWC Barcelona 2024 comes to a close today. Here’s a look at some of the announcements that the event brought to light, from industry leaders like Cisco, Google, Intel and others, spanning artificial intelligence, telecom, security and sustainability.
Telecom
Cisco has partnered with Telus to launch new 5G capabilities for IoT use cases across industry verticals, notably connected cars. Car original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will be able to offer new on-board applications and advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) services while pursuing other revenue diversification goals, said Cisco.
Further, U.S.-based data infrastructure semiconductor solutions provider Marvell Technology, announced that it is collaborating with Dell, Fujitsu and Wind River to deliver Open RAN solutions for Japanese mobile phone operator NTT Docomo and other carriers.
ORAN is a nonproprietary version of the Radio Access Network (RAN) system that allows interoperation between various pieces of cellular network equipment provided by different vendors, including the radio unit (RU), the distributed unit (DU) and the centralized unit (CU).
A big focus for numerous other companies at MWC, ORAN expected to account for 20-30 per cent of worldwide RAN revenues by 2028, according to the Dell’Oro Group.
Singapore-based SynaXG, for instance, announced a strategic collaboration with Wind River and Ampere. The partnership integrates SynaXG’s virtualized distributed unit (vDU) card with StarlingX, a cloud-native, Kubernetes, open-source infrastructure project supported by Wind River and Ampere’s multicore processors to redefine 5G network infrastructure.
The collaboration sets new industry standards for power efficiency, ease of integration, and cloud-based network management for Open RAN, said SynaXG.
Germany-based ng-voice launched Hyperscale IMS, a cloud-native instant messaging system solution to empower telecom operators to reduce voice production costs, optimize network management and service delivery with AI and deploy new voice services for additional income streams.
AI
Telematics company Geotab, attending MWC as part of Ontario’s delegation, introduced Geotab Ace, a generative AI assistant for connected transportation.
The tool has access to an expansive array of insights, the company said, including predictive safety analytics, predictive maintenance, trip data, zone activity, electric vehicle statistics, exception events, GPS tracking, and more. It’s built on privacy-by-design principles, and never shares customer telematics data with any Large Language Model (LLM), said Geotab.
Further, Arizona-based telecom equipment supplier Viavi announced additional capabilities of a joint Testbed as a Service (TBaaS) with VMware (recently acquired by Broadcom) to advance digital twin environments.
The digital twin modeling, based on AI and enabling new predictive capabilities, will be leveraged for the evaluation and performance benchmarking of applications.
In other AI news, users now have access to Google’s generative AI assistant, Gemini, in Gmail, Docs, Slides, Sheets and Meet (formerly Duet AI), with a Google One AI Premium plan. The tech giant highlighted that no personal or business Workspace data will be used to train underlying LLMs, without permission.
The Google One AI Premium plan costs US$19.99 per user per month after a no-cost two month trial.
Finally, American messaging platform, Gupshup announced that it is integrating AI chatbots, powered by Google’s Vertex AI, to rich communication services (RCS) conversations. That, the company said, “will enable businesses to deliver more precise and human-like interactions with speed and scale and offer a more personalized and responsive experience.”
Security
Palo Alto Networks announced end-to-end private 5G security solutions and services, in partnership with Celona, Druid, Ataya, NETSCOUT, Nvidia and NTT DATA.
Specifically, Palo Alto Networks’ enterprise-grade 5G Security, along with the partner integrations, seek to enable organizations to easily deploy, manage, and secure networks throughout their entire 5G journey.
Furthermore, endpoint security solutions provider, BUFFERZONE introduced the NoCloud AI anti-phishing detection solution, which runs on Intel’s processors. The company said it uses multiple deep-learning engines that work together to uncover malicious behavior, enabled by the Intel technology.
NoCloud AI has been added to BUFFERZONE’s Safe Workspace platform and integrated as a Chrome or Edge browser extension.
Meanwhile, Viavi announced the addition of traffic analysis capabilities to Observer Sentry, its Software-as-a-Service-based threat exposure management solution. The new capabilities will allow Observer Sentry to go beyond identifying unintended and dangerous exposures, and help SecOps, DevOps and cloud architects determine whether a vulnerability has been exploited.
Sustainability
Orange Business signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Cisco for a joint action plan to help reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Further, the collaboration will allow Orange Business to provide their customers with an estimate of the GHG emissions from their products and solutions based on Cisco technology.
Secondly, GSMA, unveiled a network equipment commerce platform, in partnership with Shields Environmental Group, to help the telecom industry achieve its financial and environmental sustainability goals.
The platform will be available to more than 1000 mobile operators and equipment manufacturers globally.
Finally, NTT Data and Schneider Electric announced a partnership combining NTT DATA’s Edge as a Service, which includes fully managed edge to cloud, private 5G, and IoT capabilities, with Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure, a modular data center. The partnership seeks to enable companies to maximize energy efficiency while meeting the demands of compute-intensive tasks such as machine vision, predictive maintenance, and other AI inferencing applications at the edge.
Discover in detail all MWC Barcelona announcements here.
