Wind River, an Aptiv company and global leader in software for the intelligent edge, and Vodafone are collaborating to operationalize AI-RAN for Open RAN networks. The joint solution will be showcased at MWC Barcelona, March 2–5, in the Wind River booth (Hall 2, Stand 2F25).
Open RAN is transforming how networks are built. AI-RAN is transforming how they are operated. As operators deploy more disaggregated infrastructure, traditional operations models are reaching their limits. The volume, velocity, and variability of network data now exceed what human-driven operations can effectively manage. The Wind River–Vodafone collaboration demonstrates how AI-RAN moves intelligence from dashboards into the operational core of the network.
“Open RAN fundamentally changes how networks are built; AI-RAN changes how they are operated,” said Paul Miller, CTO, Wind River. “Operators are moving from static infrastructure to dynamic, software-defined environments where complexity grows faster than human operators can manage. Our collaboration with Vodafone demonstrates how AI-RAN can turn operational data into continuous intelligence, enabling networks that detect issues earlier, adapt faster, and move closer to autonomous operation. Together, we are showing how AI-RAN can become the operational backbone of next-generation telecom infrastructure.”
“As our networks evolve to support growing demand and more dynamic, open architectures, it’s essential that we adopt technologies that continually improve performance, operational efficiency, and reliability. By collaborating with Wind River, we can introduce AI‑RAN innovation into our operations, providing our teams with the intelligence necessary to stay ahead of issues before they affect our customers,” said Marco Zangani, Director of Network Strategy & Architecture, Vodafone Group.
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Powered by Vodafone’s 5G network running on its O-Cloud platform and built from the container infrastructure delivered by Wind River® Cloud Platform with analytics from Wind River Analytics, the solution continuously ingests massive telemetry streams across the RAN and cloud layers. AI models learn normal system behavior over time, detect subtle deviations, predict emerging issues, and guide remediation actions before customer experience is affected.
Unlike traditional OSS tools that analyze events after they occur, the joint solution continuously learns from live network behavior, enabling operators to shift from reactive troubleshooting to predictive and increasingly autonomous operations a central objective of AI-RAN architectures.
Demonstrations of the solution show the ability to:
- Reduce anomaly detection time from hours to minutes through multi-layer telemetry correlation
- Continuously learn from more than 70TB of network data per week, enabling long-term behavioral modeling across distributed RAN environments
- Scale short-term learning and troubleshooting analytics in TBs per hour, supporting real-time operational decisions
- Accelerate root-cause identification and remediation workflows, reducing mean time to resolution and limiting service impact
- Enable teams to manage larger open RAN footprints without proportional increases in operational cost or staffing
Why This Matters for the Industry
The telecom industry has spent years virtualizing infrastructure and disaggregating the RAN. The next challenge is operational scale.
AI-RAN enables operators to:
- Run larger, more distributed networks without linear increases in OpEx
- Detect performance degradations before customers notice them
- Shorten recovery cycles and improve service reliability
- Lay the operational foundation for fully autonomous networks
The joint Wind River–Vodafone work demonstrates that AI-RAN is no longer a future concept it is becoming a deployable operational capability.
Source: Wind River