The MWC Barcelona 2024 event concluded today, showcasing a range of innovations and collaborations from industry leaders like Cisco, Google, Intel, and others. The event covered various sectors including artificial intelligence, telecommunications, security, and sustainability.
Telecommunications
Cisco and Telus have joined forces to introduce new 5G capabilities for IoT applications across industries, particularly in connected vehicles. This collaboration aims to enable car manufacturers to offer new on-board applications and advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) services, thereby diversifying their revenue streams.
Marvell Technology, a U.S.-based data infrastructure semiconductor solutions provider, has announced a partnership with Dell, Fujitsu, and Wind River to deliver Open RAN solutions for Japanese mobile phone operator NTT Docomo and other carriers. Open RAN is a non-proprietary version of the Radio Access Network (RAN) system that fosters interoperability between various cellular network equipment from different vendors.
Singapore-based SynaXG has partnered with Wind River and Ampere to integrate its virtualized distributed unit (vDU) card with StarlingX, an open-source infrastructure project, and Ampere's multicore processors. This collaboration aims to redefine 5G network infrastructure by setting new standards for power efficiency, integration ease, and cloud-based network management for Open RAN.
Germany-based ng-voice has launched Hyperscale IMS, a cloud-native instant messaging system solution designed to help telecom operators reduce voice production costs, optimize network management and service delivery with AI, and deploy new voice services for additional income streams.
Artificial Intelligence
Geotab, a telematics company, has introduced Geotab Ace, a generative AI assistant for connected transportation. This tool offers a wide range of insights, including predictive safety analytics, predictive maintenance, trip data, zone activity, electric vehicle statistics, exception events, and GPS tracking. It is built on privacy-by-design principles and does not share customer telematics data with any Large Language Model (LLM).
Viavi, an Arizona-based telecom equipment supplier, has announced additional capabilities of a joint Testbed as a Service (TBaaS) with VMware to advance digital twin environments. This digital twin modeling, based on AI, enables new predictive capabilities and will be used for the evaluation and performance benchmarking of applications.
Google has introduced Gemini, a generative AI assistant, in Gmail, Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Meet (formerly Duet AI). This feature is available with a Google One AI Premium plan, which costs US$19.99 per user per month after a two-month trial. Google has emphasized that no personal or business Workspace data will be used to train underlying LLMs without permission.
Gupshup, an American messaging platform, has announced the integration of AI chatbots powered by Google's Vertex AI into rich communication services (RCS) conversations. This integration aims to enable businesses to deliver more precise and human-like interactions with speed and scale, offering a more personalized and responsive experience.
Security
Palo Alto Networks has announced end-to-end private 5G security solutions and services in partnership with Celona, Druid, Ataya, NETSCOUT, Nvidia, and NTT DATA. These solutions aim to enable organizations to deploy, manage, and secure networks throughout their entire 5G journey.
BUFFERZONE, an endpoint security solutions provider, has introduced the NoCloud AI anti-phishing detection solution, which runs on Intel's processors. This solution uses multiple deep-learning engines to uncover malicious behavior and has been integrated into BUFFERZONE's Safe Workspace platform as a Chrome or Edge browser extension.
Viavi has added traffic analysis capabilities to Observer Sentry, its Software-as-a-Service-based threat exposure management solution. These capabilities go beyond identifying unintended and dangerous exposures and help SecOps, DevOps, and cloud architects determine whether a vulnerability has been exploited.
Sustainability
Orange Business has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Cisco to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This collaboration will also enable Orange Business to provide their customers with an estimate of the GHG emissions from their products and solutions based on Cisco technology.
GSMA has unveiled a network equipment commerce platform in partnership with Shields Environmental Group to help the telecom industry achieve its financial and environmental sustainability goals. This platform will be available to more than 1000 mobile operators and equipment manufacturers globally.
NTT Data and Schneider Electric have announced a partnership combining NTT DATA's Edge as a Service with Schneider Electric's EcoStruxure. This partnership aims to enable companies to maximize energy efficiency while meeting the demands of compute-intensive tasks such as machine vision, predictive maintenance, and other AI inferencing applications at the edge.