Pure Storage said it will leverage its modern storage expertise to enhance the Alliance’s ability to manage data storage needs
Data storage solutions provider Pure Storage has joined the AI-RAN Alliance. According to the company, its products will drive the adoption of AI-RAN by meeting the demands of modern radio access network (RAN) architectures driving by increased data traffic and diverse service requirements.
Officially launched in February 2024, the AI-RAN Alliance is a group of technology and telecom leaders focused on the integration of AI into cellular technology to further advance RAN technology and mobile networks. According to Alex Jinsung Choi, chair of the AI-RAN Alliance and principal fellow of SoftBank Corp.’s Research Institute of Advanced Technology, the main mission of the group is to “weave AI right into the fabric of the radio access network.
The Alliance is comprised of three working groups:
AI-for-RAN: This group is looking at how AI can enhance the performance of the RAN, diving deep into how AI can improve efficiency, boost capacity and achieve key performance targets.
AI-on-RAN: This group is addressing challenges around running AI applications directly on radio access networks by looking at things like jitter, latency and other performance metrics to ensure that RAN systems can support advanced AI applications.
AI-and-RAN: The final group is tasked with exploring how using the same infrastructure to run both RAN workload and also AI workload simultaneously will open up new revenue streams for telcos without compromising on performance.
The vision is to transform networks into self-organization, self-optimizing and self-managing systems; but this is not small task. “The integration of AI into RAN technologies requires a robust infrastructure capable of handling diverse, high-volume data applications, ensuring network reliability, availability, and performance,” stated Pure Storage. “With AI becoming integral to telecom networks, traditional storage architectures — relying on dedicated disk-based appliances or direct-attached storage — are no longer sufficient.” The company goes on to argue that the specific is challenge is around extracting and managing the data from network functions in real time.
The company then said that its advanced data storage solutions — most notably the Pure Storage platform — are suited to meet these demands by simplifying and accelerating AI workflows through three key characteristics:
- A unified storage approach that eliminates data silos, integrates diverse data sources and enhances network efficiency by sharing storage capacity and I/O bandwidth with multiple data-intensive applications.
- Pure Storage systems can scale on demand according to network and energy needs, as as ass spectrum optimization, which it said relieves IT, data scientists and AIOps teams from common storage management tasks.
- Pure Storage has worked with NVIDIA since 2017 to develop solutions that integrate Pure Storage FlashBlade//S storage systems with the chipmaker’s DGX SuperPOD, BasePOD and other models. The partnership provides a certified Ethernet-based solution that supports various AI applications in telco environments.
“By joining the AI-RAN Alliance, Pure Storage will leverage its expertise to enhance the alliance’s ability to manage data storage needs, thus ensuring efficient and reliable network operations,” stated the company. “This collaboration marks a significant milestone in advancing telecommunications infrastructure to meet the growing demands of AI-driven technologies.”
