BARCELONA : Japanese open RAN technology provider Rakuten Symphony, part of Rakuten Mobile, plans to invest $10 million in India this year to improve AI capabilities and conduct research on 6G, a senior company executive said.
The initiative will be based in the company’s Bengaluru research and development center, its second largest technology hub outside of Japan.
“This year and next year we will focus on expanding it, with a focus on ‘AI negation’ initially. We plan to invest about 10 million dollars this year for the laboratory and R&D for 6G,” said Sharad Sriwastawa, co-chief executive employee and chief technologist of Rakuten Mobile and president of Rakuten Symphony. Mint on the side of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Rakuten Mobile is the mobile arm of Rakuten Group, and Rakuten Symphony is its telecom platform solutions subsidiary.
Labeling India as a key global R&D hub, Sriwastawa said it had around 3,000 employees in Rakuten Symphony engaged in various research, development and operational tasks.
Rakuten’s Indian arm has approximately 4,000 employees who support the group’s operations including e-commerce and payment services. He added that the company is hiring key function heads in India and has transferred staff to India to strengthen its local operations.
The global innovation lab, set up in FY2022-23, is in addition to its existing lab on the radio access network or RAN. Between the three centers – Bengaluru, Indore and Pune – the company’s R&D hubs focus on radio access networks, core networks and performance testing.
Open RAN technology helps telecom operators source hardware and software from different suppliers, thus ending dependence on single vendors.
Rakuten has also initiated discussions with the three major Indian telecom operators – Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea – to deploy small cells based on open RAN technology, Sriwastawa said.
“We have started initial discussions with all the three operators in India. Once they are done with the 5G deployment in a few months, then they will consider Open RAN. They are going for small cells to begin with, but for the macro (cells), the trials will begin before the end of the year,” he said.
The company has deployed around 5,000 femtocells in Bharti Airtel’s 4G network by 2021, but has not made significant progress into the Indian market since then.
Sriwastawa also said that the Rakuten group was among the first to adopt AI, and developed AI algorithms for its e-commerce business in Japan. Having partnered with OpenAI last year, Rakuten will also team up with the Sam Altman-backed tech company to develop AI solutions for mobile networks, including those for customer service, network optimization and predictive maintenance of telecom networks.
The reporter was in Barcelona to cover the Mobile World Congress at the invitation of Xiaomi.
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Published: 08 Mar 2024, 16:25 IST
(tagsTo Translate)Rakuten