At the ongoing India Mobile Congress 2024, Ericsson announced that it is intensifying its focus on Network APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) at its research and development centers in India. This move aims to enable industries to tap into advanced telecom capabilities, including network slicing and quality on demand, as service providers roll out 5G technologies. According to Ericsson, Network APIs allow both new and existing industry sectors to utilise the advanced capabilities of telecommunications networks.
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Network APIs for 5G
High-performing, open, programmable networks that use 5G standalone (SA) architecture provide new opportunities for service innovation and open up possibilities for performance-based business models, Ericsson said. As previously reported by TelecomTalk, Ericsson announced a joint venture with several global telecommunications service providers, including Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, to combine and sell APIs on a global scale, simplifying access for developers.
Andres Vicente, Head of Southeast Asia, Oceania, and India at Ericsson, said, "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 focus on developing programmable/API capabilities to support simplified and secure network interfaces and advanced use cases, including Device Management, Security, and Fraud Detection.
Ericsson also said its engineering teams at R&D sites in Chennai, Bengaluru, and Gurugram work across telecom domains such as 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 said, noting that it is partnering with premier institutes in India for research on Radio, AI, and Cloud technologies.
Integrating AI into Offerings
Discussing Artificial Intelligence, Ericsson highlighted that it has integrated AI into its product and service offerings, successfully implementing AI solutions in customer networks to address challenges in network planning, deployment, and operations.
Using Generative AI, Ericsson said it has developed intelligent assistants that enable engineers to engage in natural language conversations with the network while extracting key insights from multiple data sources. This has significantly shortened the time required for tasks such as network monitoring and troubleshooting. The company has achieved this by integrating AI capabilities into its offerings, including its in-house Generative AI platform, Ericsson Language Intelligence (ELI), which consists of a suite of large language models optimised 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 IMC, according to Ericsson.
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The company further noted that 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.
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," added Andres Vicente.
What Are APIs?
APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are sets of rules and protocols that allow different software applications to communicate with each other. Think of them as bridges or messengers that let one app request and retrieve data or functionality from another app or service.
For example, if a weather app wants to display current weather conditions, it can use an API from a weather service to get that information. The API provides specific instructions on how to make the request and what kind of data will be returned. This weather information is then showcased to the user by the app.
