At MWC Barcelona, Amdocs showcased its latest innovations in network automation, with a strong focus on Cognitive RAN Automation (CRA). This newly launched solution is designed to enhance automation for both traditional and Open RAN networks. CRA, a non-real-time RIC, leverages AI, machine learning, and open-source technologies to streamline network operations.
Amdocs is also demonstrating its digital twin technology, developed in collaboration with NVIDIA and Omniverse. This tool allows network providers to simulate real-world scenarios in a 3D environment, optimizing network rollouts and configurations. As AI-driven automation continues to evolve rapidly, Amdocs emphasizes the urgency for telecom operators to embrace these technologies to stay competitive.
Alejandro Piñero:
All right, welcome back to Fierce Network's coverage here at MWC Barcelona '25, and I find myself in what must be one of the most hopping and busy stands that we've seen all week. I'm here with Amdocs and we're going to talk about network automation. Nir, welcome. How are you doing?
Nir Hollander:
Hi. Good, good, thank you-
Alejandro Piñero:
Excellent.
Nir Hollander:
[inaudible 00:00:24]
Alejandro Piñero:
All right, why don't you tell us a little bit about your network automation story from Amdocs' point of view?
Nir Hollander:
Yeah. So we had a long journey, or we still have a long journey with network automation. In my division, I'm running the Mobile Network Services division, we are investing in this for a long period of time. We are focusing mainly on automation of the RAN, and it's both for the traditional RAN and also for the Open RAN, when it comes to Open RAN. One of the major things that we actually announced in the last couple of days is the announcement about the new platform, a new solution that we actually created, that is called CRA.
It's Cognitive RAN Automation, which is a solution to provide our customers close to a platform to run a automation, both for the traditional RAN and for the Open RAN when it's applicable, because we see the journey towards Open RAN. We see that many of our customers are going to this direction, and this is in a way a solution that we built for a non-real-time RIC that we call CRA, and we've been doing it by leveraging open source code as well AI and ML capabilities. And we launched it two days ago, something like that, just for MWC.
And it provides automation capabilities. It comes also with several rApps that were already developed around energy saving, around massive MIMO, and around cell outage capabilities. These are rApps that we actually got a Silver Badge award by TIP. TIP is an organization or a group that we're working with for the last several years, and we are doing stuff with them, for example, in the UK and in other places. And we got the Silver Badge for energy saving rApp just actually late last week. So this is how we started. We continue evolving and we continue developing more rApps and more automation capabilities for both traditional RAN and the Open RAN.
Alejandro Piñero:
And as I said, very busy stand. Can you give us a very quick snapshot of what are some of the things that you're showing here at Barcelona?
Nir Hollander:
Yeah, so we are showing many things. You can see the nice smiley emoji. And behind me, we are also showing, I'm not sure that it's showing now, the theme of the event is around redefining the industry and also being in the experience, and a lot of focus around gen AI and AI. So one of the things that we developed is the digital twin of the mobile network, working with NVIDIA, working with the Omniverse, and we have now capabilities to show or to mimic a mobile network as part of a 3D digital twin and also run different use cases.
One of them, for example, is if you need to simulate different network scenarios. Or when you want to roll out, where is the best place and how to do it? Fixed wireless access or for any other things. And then it can optimize or tell you how exactly, where to put the different radios, different antennas, different VPUs and whatever you need. And this is something that we show here behind me, which is in the booth. And as you can see, we have a lot of visitors and traction in the booth, in the stand. I think it's quite significant.
Alejandro Piñero:
Great. And I wanted to ask you very briefly around Open RAN, obviously a huge topic, how is everything you're showing here linked to that technology?
Nir Hollander:
Open RAN is an evolution of the traditional network, traditional RAN, and we see customers that are going towards this direction, be it AT&T that is going to this direction and Vodafone and many others. Open RAN can be used, or we can use our solution also to automate scenarios on the Open RAN network. Where you require more integration, where you require many more vendors, when our customers have to reduce cost dramatically. We know that our customers are planning and are strategizing now about Open RAN. At the same time, we also know that many of our customers do not have automation when it comes to Open RAN. So we see the evolution, we see that customers are going to this direction. We want to be part of it. The non-real-time RIC in the rApps that we developed are another tool for them to automate the different scenarios and the different use cases on the Open RAN network. And we as a global SI can also help them in doing many other things related to the open RAN.
Alejandro Piñero:
Awesome. To close out, any word of advice to customers or partners that are here in Barcelona and watching at home?
Nir Hollander:
Mainly, gen AI and AI and automation is here. It's happening much faster than we even think. You have to be there in order not to stay behind, so you can't ignore it, that's for sure. In order to be ahead of the curve, you can come to us and see what else we can help you with in terms of services, in terms of product, on traditional RAN and Open RAN, and good luck to all of us.
Alejandro Piñero:
Lovely. Thank you very much, Nir.
Nir Hollander:
Thank you.