Ericsson and Intel to co-develop 'next generation' platform for 5G

Ericsson and Intel have partnered to develop a “next-generation hardware management platform” for 5G, network functions virtualisation (NFV) and distributed cloud.

In a multi-year project, the companies will use Ericsson’s software-defined infrastructure (SDI) management software and Intel’s Rack Scale Design to create the platform.

The companies say the platform will “extend the agility of the cloud to the hardware infrastructure layer”.

It will also help service providers “speed time-to-market, maximise utilisation and reduce total cost of ownership”, according to a statement. 

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"We have long history of successful collaboration with Intel,” said Lars Mårtensson, Head of Cloud & NFV infrastructure, Business Area Digital Services at Ericsson.

“This new collaboration will focus on software in addition to hardware and we see it to be truly transformative for service providers' ability to successfully deploy open cloud and NFV infrastructure, from centralized data centers to the edge.”

In September, Intel announced that both Ericsson and Nokia would use its technology in the first series of 5G deployments globally.

Commenting on the partnership, Sandra Rivera, Senior Vice President, Network Platform Group at Intel added: "5G will be transformative, accelerating today's applications and triggering a wave of new usages and edge-based innovation.

“Our infrastructure manageability collaboration with Ericsson will help communications service providers remove deployment barriers, reduce costs, and deliver new 5G and edge services with cloudlike speed on a flexible, programmable and intelligent network."