On March 2 at Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2026, Intel and Ericsson announced an expanded partnership to accelerate the telecom industry’s adoption of AI-powered sixth-generation wireless networks.
The partnership extends their decades-long relationship and focuses on developing compute infrastructure, connectivity systems, and cloud platforms for commercial 6G deployments.
Ericsson, valued at about $38 billion, ranks among the top three telecom equipment vendors worldwide alongside Nokia and Huawei.
The company primarily serves wireless carriers but is expanding into enterprise markets with 5G and cloud-based communication platforms.
The partnership targets technical areas like:
- Radio Access Networks
- Packet Core Systems
- Edge Computing
- Security Systems
They will collaborate on standards and ecosystem readiness to enable operators to launch AI-native networks rather than just add AI to existing systems. At the event, both showcased joint technology projects in their booths.
Moving From Research To Practical World Use
Borje Ekholm, Ericsson’s President and CEO, called the initiative a move from minor network upgrades to full infrastructure redesign.
6G is not simply an iteration of mobile technology. Ekholm said it is the infrastructure that will distribute AI across devices, the edge, and the cloud. Ericsson’s long history of network innovation and large-scale operator deployments enables us to lead practical integration across the value chain and move 6G from research into commercial reality.
Global standards groups are still developing sixth-generation wireless standards, and the industry expects commercial rollouts in the early 2030s. 6G is designed to offer speedier data speeds, lower latency, and support for more devices than 5G.
Industry groups say that 6G’s main feature is to embed machine learning and AI into the network, from the start, rather than adding them later to systems not designed for them.
Lip-Bu Tan, Intel’s CEO, described the company’s technical priorities within the partnership. Intel’s ambition is to be the undisputed technology leader in combining RAN, core, and edge AI to enable an effortless transition to AI-native 6G environments. Tan said: “Together with Ericsson, we will continue to demonstrate that the future of network connectivity is open, power-efficient, secure, and grounded in intelligent AI inference.”
Open Connectivity refers to network designs with standardized interfaces that enable operators to use multi-vendor equipment.
This method, called Open RAN, helps operators avoid reliance on a single supplier, lowers overall deployment costs, and gives smaller equipment makers a chance to compete with larger companies.
The partnership aims to accelerate and optimize AI workloads across the network by using AI-optimized processors at cell sites and edge locations and by building systems for both network processing and machine learning on unified hardware.
Intel’s Xeon processors will be used in cloud RAN systems, while future Ericsson chips will use Intel’s manufacturing technology.
AI For Networks And Networks For AI
The companies are forging ahead to achieve two ambitious goals: harnessing AI to revolutionize network operations by managing radio resources for casting traffic and seamlessly automating infrastructure management.
The second goal involves building networks specifically designed to support AI applications running on devices and in cloud environments. In this vision, compute and connectivity are treated as integrated rather than separate layers, directly linking to the evolving operational needs enabled by AI.
This integrated design contrasts with today’s mobile networks, where most computing happens in data centers and on users’ devices. Looking ahead, processing will be spread out across the network using radio equipment and edge servers for distributed computing, reflecting the demands of emerging AI-powered applications.
Further, supporting this evolution, the plan also includes adding sensing abilities to the network. With these enhancements, the infrastructure can notice and react to what’s happening around it, not just move data from one place to another.
Ericsson and Intel’s long-standing collaboration on cloud-based radio access and 5G core systems sets the stage for their latest venture. A 6G partnership focused on maximizing energy efficiency, championing open interfaces, and embedding cutting-edge AI.
Industry groups like 3GPP are gearing up to launch official work on 6G standards, with the world eagerly awaiting the commercial debut of 6G technology projected for 2030-2032.
Source: Intel and Ericsson Partner Up to Accelerate AI-Native 6G Networks
