AI-RAN Alliance Announces Appointment of Dr. Alex Jinsung Choi as Chair
The AI-RAN Alliance has announced the appointment of industry veteran Dr. Alex Jinsung Choi as its new chair. The former O-RAN ALLIANCE chairman and Deutsche Telekom executive, who recently joined Softbank’s Research Institute of Advanced Technology as Principal Fellow, seems an ideal fit for the newly formed industry group. He brings over 30 years of experience in the telecom industry, having served in many corporate leadership roles in research and development of various technological domains such as mobile networks and AI/ML (AI/machine learning). Dr. Choi has also been quite a prolific contributor to AI discussions on LinkedIn of late.
“The AI-RAN Alliance is set to transform telecommunications through AI-RAN advancements, increased efficiency, and new economic opportunities,” said Choi. “As Chair, I’m excited to lead this AI-RAN initiative, working with industry leaders to enhance mobile networks, reduce power consumption, and modernize infrastructure with 5G and 6G with AI/ML. Our goal is to drive societal progress through AI-RAN, transitioning from traditional to next-generation communications infrastructure.”
Dr. Choi’s remit will see him lead the AI-RAN Alliance’s work to advance research and innovation in three main areas: AI-for-RAN, which focuses on enhancing radio access network capabilities with AI to improve spectral efficiency; AI-and-RAN, which integrates AI with RAN processes to optimize infrastructure use and create new revenue opportunities; and AI-on-RAN, which deploys AI services at the network edge to increase operational efficiency and provide new services to mobile users.
Interestingly however, the network operators in the alliance have committed to spearhead the testing and implementation of the technologies developed. This perhaps feels like a lesson learned from Dr. Choi’s work with Open RAN where operators have so far been reluctant to bear the costs associated with testing, validating and integrating new solutions.
That being said, while industry consensus around AI-for-RAN is strong, the viability of AI-and-RAN and AI-on-RAN is contentious. In a LinkedIn post shared earlier in the day, industry analyst Dean Bubley argued the market opportunity for these solutions don’t justify the investments required and concluded that “this is destined to stay a small niche”. As to his reasons: “Telcos don’t have enough power for distributed GPUs. Apps still need multi-network access. Latency is complex”. For now at least, such doubts are unlikely to slow the telecom industry’s zealous pursuit of leadership in the AI space.
