Ericsson stepping up focus on Network APIs at India R&D Centers

Ericsson is stepping up its focus on Network APIs at its India R&D Centers. Network APIs allow new and existing industry sectors to utilize the advanced capabilities of telecommunications networks. Today even as service providers are delivering the benefits of 5G to consumers and enterprises, they have an opportunity to transform the network into a platform for innovation by making advanced 5G network capabilities available to the global developer community through open network application programming interfaces (APIs).

For example, capabilities such as quality on demand and network slicing can be made available through programmatic interfaces. High-performing, open, programmable networks that utilize 5G standalone (SA) architecture provide new opportunities for service innovation and open up possibilities for performance-based business models.

In this regard, Ericsson recently announced a new venture with some of the world’s leading Service providers, including Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, to combine and sell APIs on a global scale to spur innovation in digital services. Network APIs are the way to easily access, use and pay for network capabilities. The venture will drive implementation and access to common APIs from multiple telecom service providers to a broader ecosystem of developer platforms.

Andres Vicente, Head of Southeast Asia, Oceania and India, Ericsson says,” We are stepping up the work on AI, Gen AI and Network APIs at our R&D Centers in India. The synergy of high-performance and programmable networks, combined with network APIs and a vibrant ecosystem of developers, will create a powerful network effect of growth and innovation. And this represents a big opportunity for India with its thriving developer and startup ecosystem.” The R&D teams will work on developing programmable/API capabilities to support simplified and secure network interfaces, and advanced use cases, including Device Management, Security, and Fraud Detection.

Engineering teams at Ericsson R&D Sites in Chennai, Bengaluru and Gurugram work across telecom domains spanning Transport, Packet Core, OSS, BSS, Cloud and advanced AI technologies. The Ericsson 6G Research teams in India are working on several advanced technologies like Intent-based autonomous telecom networks; Trustworthy AI; Sustainable AI and Advanced Generative AI capabilities. Ericsson is today partnering with premier institutes in India for Radio, AI and Cloud research.

Ericsson has integrated AI into its product and service offerings, successfully implementing AI solutions in customer networks to tackle challenges in network planning, deployment and operations. Using Generative AI, Ericsson has developed intelligent assistants, which enable engineers to engage in natural language conversations with the network while extracting key network insights from multiple data sources. This has significantly shortened the time it takes to perform tasks such as network monitoring and troubleshooting. This reduction in time and effort is made possible by the growing AI capabilities in Ericsson’s portfolio, including Ericsson's in-house Gen AI platform, known as Ericsson Language Intelligence (ELI), which comprises of a suite of large language models optimized for telecom use cases. The India R&D Centre is significantly involved in the development of the internal ELI platform, including the ‘GenAI driven Network Autonomy’ demo being showcased at the Ericsson booth at the India Mobile Congress.

AI and Generative AI can be leveraged in telecom networks to make them more intelligent and energy efficient. The brain inspired AI demo shows how it is possible to significantly reduce AI compute energy consumption in future 6G networks. The robotic dog demo highlights how AI, Robotics and 5G can be used together to ensure safety in enterprises, for example, against fire hazard or any intrusion.

Ericsson demos at India Mobile Congress are being showcased across 4 clusters built around 5G for Consumers; 5G for Enterprises; 5G and beyond as well as Programmable Networks. 5G and beyond covers the journey towards 6G wherein the Company is showcasing some of the work being done by Ericsson R&D Centers in the space of AI and Gen AI.

Ericsson has been a partner to Indian CSPs through generations of connectivity. Ericsson has partnered with Bharti Airtel and Jio for their 5G rollout and most recently announced its 4G and 5G RAN contract with Vi. “We look forward to helping Vi seamlessly introduce 5G and in supporting Airtel in its transition to a full-scale 5G Standalone network.” states Andres Vicente.

Ericsson is at the forefront of 5G around the world and is recognized as an industry leader by the Frost Radar™: Global 5G Network Infrastructure Market report. Maintaining top ranking in the Frost Radar™ report over the past years has shown that Ericsson’s investments in R&D and across a wide product portfolio – which includes all areas of 5G network infrastructure as well as previous generations of network infrastructure – is valued in a market where technology is constantly evolving.