UTokyo Becomes Founding Member of AI-RAN Alliance

The University of Tokyo became the first Japanese university to join the AI-RAN Alliance as one of the founding members on 20 April 2024.

The launch of the AI-RAN Alliance was announced in February 2024 by Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), Arm, DeepSig Inc. (DeepSig), Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (Ericsson), Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft), Nokia, Northeastern University, NVIDIA, Samsung Electronics, SoftBank Corp. (SoftBank) and T-Mobile USA, Inc. (T-Mobile). The group’s mission is to enhance mobile network efficiency, reduce power consumption, and retrofit existing infrastructure, setting the stage for unlocking new economic opportunities for telecommunications companies with AI, facilitated by 5G and 6G.

The AI-RAN Alliance can maximize the effectiveness of its mission by having multiple companies and universities work together in an industry-academia collaboration. There are high expectations from the AI-RAN Alliance for academia, and this is where the University of Tokyo’s membership is significant. By joining AI-RAN Alliance as an academic founding member, we aim to promote research and development of a “next-generation cyber infrastructure”, an information and communication infrastructure as an efficient and robust lifeline essential for the future society through the fusion of AI and information and communication. We also aim to further contribute to social implementation of technology and the creation of new value for future society through international industry-academia collaborations, which the University of Tokyo promotes.