Tag Archives: Top News

Americas, Global

ZilBank Revolutionizes Mobile Banking for Seamless Transactions

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ZilBank, a leading B2B innovator in the banking industry, offers a series of features to elevate the banking experience of the user. The platform offers an effortless way to transfer funds between two ZilBank accounts. Customers can initiate payments using phone numbers, email addresses, or account numbers, making transactions smoother and hassle-free. The cloud-based software’s QR code payment system lets the customers generate QR codes and initiate transactions effortlessly.

ZilBank enables entrepreneurs to manage multiple bank accounts effortlessly, enabling various business ventures and facilitating seamless money transfers. Users can manage multiple business accounts on one platform and enjoy quick money transfers via ACH, mail check, and wire transfer.

Zil Money Corporation, the parent company of ZilBank.com, ZilMoney.com, and OnlineCheckWriter.com, is a leading online payment platform committed to helping businesses enhance cash flow and reach their full potential through ongoing innovation and changing needs.

ZilBank was created to tackle cash shortages and the on-time employee payments that small businesses often encounter. The cloud-based platform offers an innovative solution to assist small businesses in efficiently handling payroll by providing necessary funds. This simplifies securing funds for timely employee payments, relieving financial stress for small business owners.

ZilBank remains committed to providing its customers with secure, efficient, and user-friendly banking services. This innovative system empowers payees to complete the payment process swiftly through phone or email. These updates reflect the platform’s commitment to providing its customers with advanced technology and maximum convenience.

ZilBank simplifies international financial processes, helping businesses of all sizes grow globally. The commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction makes the platform an excellent choice for businesses seeking global expansion.

IoT & AI, Technology For SMEs

AWS Selects 35 Generative AI Startups for ML Elevate 2023

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Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly advancing technology that has captivated businesses of all sizes and across sectors with its ability to comprehend and generate realistic conversations, stories, images, videos, and music across diverse domains. Indian startups are at the forefront of harnessing generative AI technology to build applications to accelerate innovation and drive transformation. A recent study by NASSCOM highlighted that the count of generative AI startups in India has more than doubled from 2021 to 2023[1].

To enable generative AI startups to accelerate their journey, AWS, in association with Accel, launched the AWS ML Elevate program in July 2023.

The program received over 400 applications from startups across India, out of which, 35 Indian startups have been selected to be part of the AWS ML Elevate 2023 cohort. The applicant startups were screened across various scoring parameters such as market opportunity, product robustness, underlying tech stack, and business viability. The selected startups offer distinctive and forward-looking generative AI solutions such as drug discovery, content generation (including audio, images, videos, textual), code generation, and others.

The program offers the selected startups technical and business mentorship, and guidance from experts, along with access to a community of industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and VCs. The AWS ML Elevate 2023 cohort participants will also receive access to impactful AI models and tools, the AWS Activate Program, and up to $200,000 in AWS credits. The cohort will also have the opportunity to scale production-ready generative AI applications on Amazon SageMaker JumpStart and get access to curated resources and one-on-one office hours, supplemented with networking with founders, operators, and experts in the AI/ML domain.

As a part of the ML Elevate 2023 programme, these startups will engage in a series of sessions that will help them focus on evolving their product-market fit, set up a strong technical foundation for a scalable product, and develop capabilities to drive fundraising opportunities.

Indian startups selected for AWS ML Elevate 2023 are:

Beatoven.ai

Beatoven.ai enables content creators to craft original, royalty-free soundtracks for various mediums, alleviating issues related to music search, editing, and licensing.

Dashtoon.ai

Dashverse Corp’s “Dashtoon” offers a rapid digital comic creation tool, linking creators with millions of global readers.

Dubverse.ai

Dubverse transforms video content with its audio-generative AI platform, allowing real-time language translations with natural voices and manual editing options.

MetaBrix

MetaBrix aims to simplify 3D content creation with its no-code SaaS platform, reducing time, effort, and cost in games, e-commerce, and immersive applications.

OpeninApp

OpeninApp offers a comprehensive suite of AI tools designed to assist content creators in developing, distributing, and monetizing their content more efficiently, affordably, and effectively.

Blend

Blend revolutionizes eCommerce with its AI Figma tool, empowering merchants to create stunning product visuals quickly and efficiently.

TryNDBuy

A deep tech entity in computer vision and AI, it offers solutions for virtual trials of dresses, makeup, and jewelry, enhancing the shopping experience.

Boltzmann

Boltzmann is developing an ecosystem of five AI-first, cloud-based platforms interconnected to facilitate various stages of drug discovery, including clinical trial design and synthetic chemistry.

DhiWise

DhiWise streamlines the design-to-code process, thereby enhancing developer productivity twentyfold and saving over five million hours of coding.

Embedchain

Embedchain.ai is an open-source platform for creating ChatGPT-like bots, tailored to custom and constantly updating datasets.

Floworks

Floworks develops an AI capable of interacting with and operating every existing software, simplifying communications with various work apps.

NeuralSync AI

A product of the IIIT-H Computer Vision lab, NeuralSync delves into AI research, pioneering deep learning models from talking head video generation to digital humans.

Phot.ai

Phot.ai specializes in utility and productivity tools, with over 550 million downloads since its inception in 2018.

SandLogic

SandLogic is at the forefront of enterprise AI, streamlining Edge AI adoption with cost-effective solutions. Their intelligent automation accelerator optimizes the handling of cognitive inputs, empowering organizations to turbocharge their operational efficiency.

ChatMan

Brance IT is crafting AI Inside Sales agents to automate sections of Inside sales roles, enhancing efficiency in sales processes.

Goodmeetings

Goodmeetings offers AI-powered meeting insights and automation, assisting remote sales teams in improving performance through automated notes and key insights.

Contlo

Contlo is an AI-native platform, Contlo enhances marketing and customer engagement, bringing innovation to the forefront of business strategies.

Enterpret

Enterpret Inc facilitates better product development by aggregating customer feedback in one place and deriving actionable insights for popular product companies.

Frammer

Frammer is a SaaS solution that transforms videos into short, monetizable, and discoverable content through the power of AI.

Gan.ai

Gan.ai enhances brand marketing with video personalization at scale, boosting engagement and conversion through AI-driven technology.

Gnani.ai

Gnani.ai facilitates efficient enterprise communication, automating customer queries and improving agent efficiency through AI technologies.

Hexo.ai

Hexo.ai integrates generative AI into marketing workflows to help teams improve ROI on spends, bringing a new dimension to marketing strategies.

LokiBots

LokiBots provides a cloud-native platform combining conversational and generative AI for automation in conversational processes and RPA.

Predis.ai

Predis.ai combines the features of ChatGPT, Canva, and Hootsuite to generate branded editable content for companies, enhancing brand presence.

Segmind

Segmind offers high-performance deployment solutions for generative models, paving the way for advancements in the AI sector.

Simplismart

Simplismart allows businesses to create and manage AI systems effortlessly, reducing deep learning model development time and costs significantly.

Orbo.ai

Orbo.ai helps brands elevate return on advertising spend and customer engagement with AI-powered personalization tools.

Garvik AI

Garvik.ai offers transformative Middleware solutions for Sales in Banking and Manufacturing. Their integrated solutions provide real-time AI support, predictive analytics, and a unified intelligence platform, boosting efficiency, and customer satisfaction, and enabling growth in dynamic markets.

UnScript.ai

UnScript revolutionizes live-action video creation with its generative AI model, enabling animation through natural language prompts.

Personate.ai

Personate.ai synthesizes digital human-based videos for educational and information broadcasting, serving a vast Indian audience.

REimagineHome

REimagineHomeAI 2.0 merges design, real estate, and AI to transform visual creation processes in the industry, replacing outdated methods with innovative solutions.

VisualDub

A deep tech startup, VisualDub offers immersive storytelling with visual dubbing, with support for 30+ global languages.

Counsello

Counsello provides AI-powered tools such as Smart Search and AI Stenographer for efficient research and document summarization. Their user-friendly platform enables professionals to achieve more in less time, upgrading their legal research process to the AI era.

Jhana.ai

Jhana offers AI research and drafting assistants designed for Indian lawyers, creating a virtual paralegal to enhance research quality while saving time and resources.

Collectiv
Collectiv AI enhances developer productivity by facilitating 10x faster access to siloed knowledge, paving the way for more efficient workflows.

Office Tech, Technology For SMEs

FUJIFILM India Enters Office Printer Market with Six A3 Multifunction Printers

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FUJIFILM India, a leading innovator in business solutions, today announces the launch of A3 multifunction printers, Apeos series, for the first time in India. The printers are developed by FUJIFILM Business Innovation Corp. and sales will commence from 27 September 2023.

FUJIFILM India will be selling the A3 color multifunction printers, and Apeos C3060 / C2560 / C2060 and A3 monochrome multifunction printers, Apeos 3560 / 3060 / 2560, with a focus on productivity, reliability, and growing demands in the work environment. The printers provide uncompromising usability, enhanced security, with quick and simple operability to support user’s success in India.

Equipped with standard capabilities such as single-pass duplex document feeder, searchable OCR (optical character recognition), and NFC (Near Field Communication as a short-range wireless technologies) printing, these printers aim to increase overall office efficiency across all industries from Enterprise, Corporate, SME to the Government.

“With India’s rising economy and its attractive location for all industries, we are excited to enter this market through FUJIFILM India and provide our years of expertise in enabling digital transformation to all businesses in India,” said Masatsugu Naito, President, FUJIFILM Business Innovation Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. “We truly understand the challenges faced by each business in terms of productivity, data security and business operations, and our multifunction printers are developed not only to address these challenges but also to boost collaboration, enjoy business continuity and increased efficiency. Understanding what our customers need and developing solutions for them is our mandate.”

 “The maiden launch of this new printer business along with cutting-edge technology is a significant milestone in the journey of FUJIFILM India as a company which started its humble journey in 2007.”. said Koji Wada, Managing Director, FUJIFILM India. “We have always strived to bring the best global product and solutions of Fujifilm to India because we saw the vast opportunities in this vibrant country of 1.42 billion people. This new business introduction is a testimony of the confidence that the FUJIFILM Group has in India. FUJIFILM India envision to be a leading company that bring value to the society with our innovation.”.

“Fujifilm has always been customer-centric and developed products to meet their requirements,” said Priyatosh Kumar, Head, Graphic Communications, FUJIFILM India. “In India, Fujifilm has a very strong portfolio of products that straddles various industry segments. The start of the printer business, where we will be selling A3 and A4 office products is just an extension of that offering. Partnering FUJIFILM Business Innovation, a market leader in the multifunction printer industry in Asia Pacific, Oceania and Japan, we aim to provide significant benefits such as enhancing their job efficiency and quality, increase productivity and cost management to our customers.”  

Main features of Apeos C3060 / C2560 / C2060 and Apeos 3560 / 3060 / 2560

  • High-resolution printing of 1,200×2,400 dpi for Apeos C3060 / C2560 / C2060 (1,200×1,200 dpi for Apeos 3560 / 3060 / 2560), combined with the image enhancement for smooth reproduction of slanting lines and outlines of characters, as well as the auto-correction technology for accurate print images with fine color registration for Apeos C3060 / C2560 / C2060
  • Models with single-pass duplex scanning and automatic document feeding improves work efficiency with high-speed scanning of 80 pages per minute.
  • Advanced scanning functions support your digitalization process with features including searchable OCR, automatic orientation of scanned page to upright position, and correcting the skewed page, or removing blank pages.
  • Security functions mitigate and protect data against any malicious intent of hacking, sniffing, tampering with strong encryption for stored or transferring data and prevent unauthorized access or inadvertent information leakage
LimeLight

IIM Kashipur FIED Funds 10 Agriculture Start-ups with 1.6 Crores

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In a significant move, India’s higher educational institutes (HEIs) have agreed, in essence, to create a first-of-its-kind HEI-led ‘Agri-Consortium’ – a move initiated by IIM Kashipur. An in-principal framework in this regard was adopted by participating institutions (HEIs) during the ‘Agri-Entrepreneurship in South Asia’ Consortium-2023 organized by the Foundation for Innovation & Entrepreneurship Development (FIED), an incubation center of IIM Kashipur, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, concluding here today.

The two-day Agri Consortium 2023 aimed to provide a common platform for academicians, researchers, students, and industry professionals to interact and deliberate on the latest trends and advancements in technology, research, funding avenues, and industry requirements in the agriculture industry.

During the consortium, higher education institutions (HEIs) and universities agreed upon a principled agreement with three steps: first, sharing of startup databases among consortium members; second, dissemination of incubation or startup support programs; and finally, networking and sharing best practices on the platform.

Prof. Kulbhushan Balooni, Director of IIM Kashipur, thanked everyone for the successful completion of the two-day ‘Agri-Entrepreneurship in South Asia’ Consortium 2023.

In another development, the RKVY RAFTAAR Scheme, supported by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India through FIED, IIM Kashipur, has provided funding of 1 crore 60 lakh rupees to 10 startup companies. These companies operate in the fields of Drone technology, Agri supply chain, Food processing, Hydroponics, Waste to wealth, and Agri biotechnology industries.

Prof. Kulbhushan Balooni, Director of IIM Kashipur, said, “This Agri Consortium will serve as a platform for sharing information on agri-startups supported by member higher education institutions from different parts of the country. This opens the avenues of collaboration between startups from different geographies, helping each other take their innovative solutions to a large number of farmers.”

Prof. Safal Batra, Associate Professor, IIM Kashipur, and Director, FIED, said, “Through this consortium, we are building a knowledge pool for the startup ecosystem so that we can extend our support to various industries in developing significant startups within the agriculture sector. Additionally, we are going to establish a knowledge bank for failed startups in the agricultural industry to provide insights into their failures. These insights will be shared with policymakers and the government to assist in crafting policies for their benefit.

Approximately 10 HEIs, including IGKV-Raipur, CCS Haryana Agriculture University, Hisar, Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University, IVRI Bareilly, Pusa Krishi, New Delhi, GB Pant University, VCSJ Uttarakhand University of Forestry & Horticulture, Bharsar, Uttarakhand, and CCS NIAM Jaipur, and IIm Kashipur, have agreed to a principled agreement to collaborate in the Agri Consortium.

InFocus, Manufacturing

Raptee Secures $3 Million in Pre-Series A Round Led by Bluehill Capital

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Premium EV Motorcycle Startup, Raptee has raised $3 Million in a Pre Series A round led by deep-tech VC fund Bluehill Capital.

The all-equity funding round saw participation from industry stalwarts including Mr. Eugene Mayne, Founder and CEO of Tristar Global (UAE), Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan, Former CEO Cognizant, Ramesh Kannan, Managing Director, Kaynes Technology, Mr. Chandu Nair, Director, Shankara Building Products and other HNIs from India and the UAE.

The funds will be allocated towards augmenting the manufacturing facility, acquiring machinery, tooling for the soon to be launched motorcycle, and to scale up the team.

Raptee is a full stack electric motorcycle manufacturer with a strong technological moat that has been developed indigenously. The Company has filed for 45+ patents so far. Raptee is the first Indian two-wheeler EV OEM to boldly introduce high-voltage drive train technology, along with an on-board charger, thereby making it compatible with the existing CCS2 public charging network, which is growing fast in India and across the Globe. Currently, India has over 9000 chargers installed which is comparable to the number of fuel pumps.

The high-voltage technology that is a critical part of Raptee motorcycles will also ensure much safer battery pack, with increased battery life and most importantly will address range anxiety.

Earlier in March, Raptee became the only OEM to receive a grant from ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India), the certifying authority for automobiles in India, towards the design and development of the high voltage powertrain. The first motorcycle is expected to debut in early 2024, with two experience centres in Chennai and Bangalore, subsequently expanding to 8 more cities by the end of the first year.

Raptee has initiated R&D for the next line of products and is planning to expand the team size to 150 in line with the business plan. Raptee’s progress has also been noticed by the Tamil Nadu Government, which has subsequently allocated a 36 acres property for the company along with other incentives for scaling up manufacturing.

Dinesh Arjun, Co-founder CEO, Raptee, said, “India is the largest motorcycle market in the world, with EV adoption on the rise. At Raptee, we want to launch a motorcycle in a mid-premium segment for consumers who believe that EVs are a true upgrade from ICE vehicles. We are extremely fortunate to be backed by investors from the manufacturing and transportation industries who understand long-term value creation and can add strategic value for us as we gear up for production and scale up. This being our first institutional round, we’re also proud to be backed by a DeepTech VC, Bluehill Capital. We’ve been refining and testing our vehicles, and the results are very promising. We are looking forward to launching it very soon.”

Manu Iyer, CEO & Partner, Bluehill Capital, said, “We strongly share the vision of the Raptee team to build world-class core EV technology right here in Chennai, India in a focused and cost-effective manner. Dinesh and his co-founders have diligently built the vehicle platform indigenously with intellectual property on various aspects of the vehicle sub-system. Having evaluated over 30 EV OEMs in India and having invested deeply in the EV and clean-tech ecosystem in India, we are impressed by Raptee’s cutting edge tech and excited to partner with them on their journey. We believe Raptee’s motorcycles will change the face of EV 2-Wheelers in India,”

Over the last 12 months, Raptee’s team size has grown steadily to over 50. The rapid progress and vision displayed by the company has resulted in the on-boarding of the some of the most reputed suppliers for motorcycle components and senior leadership talent from the industry, which could ensure quality delivery and shorter turnaround times when the production scales up.

Recently, the former Head of Business of Royal Enfield, Mr. Jayapradeep V, joined Raptee as Chief Business Officer. Raptee has set up its first factory in Chennai, spread across 3 acres, which will house a majority of Raptee’s Research and Development team. It will have an annual capacity of 100,000 units and will serve as the primary production plant for Raptee for the next 24 months. The R&D centre will house state-of-the art development and testing facilities on-site and will aid in future products, while the manufacturing plant will house a dedicated battery pack assembly line. The proposed investment for this factory would be Rs 80 crore. In true Chennai startup fashion, it is noteworthy that Raptee has been frugal yet uncompromising in it’s approach and has reached this level (Tooled up Samples) at a fraction of the cost of many of its peers in the EV industry.

Raptee EV motorcycle is expected to be launched early next year. The company plans to expand to 100 cities in India and explore few conducive International markets over the next 3 years.

Americas, Global

Equinix Facilitates Southern Cross NEXT Subsea Cable Link

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Equinix, Inc., the world’s digital infrastructure company®, today announced an expanded relationship with Southern Cross Cables Limited (Southern Cross) to provide a key U.S. based interconnectivity access point for the Southern Cross NEXT (SX NEXT) submarine cable system. SX NEXT will leverage Equinix’s next generation cable landing station (CLS) architecture, enabling rapid provisioning and cost savings for the cable network provider.

Today, 99% of intercontinental telecommunications traffic is transmitted via submarine fiberoptic cables, with less than one percent of the remaining traffic carried through satellite systems.1 As demand continues to increase for a low-latency digital economy, especially with the value placed on artificial intelligence (AI) today, Equinix and Southern Cross are committed to maintaining low-carbon footprints of subsea cables by designing for sustainability, and embracing shared metrics, as recommended by Sustainability Subsea Networks.

The SX NEXT cable offers the lowest latency path from Australia and New Zealand to Los Angeles in the U.S., connecting into Equinix’s International Business Exchange® (IBX®) data center in Los Angeles (LA4). Southern Cross has had a long-term relationship with Equinix due to its global presence, expertise in providing state-of-the-art subsea infrastructure and its access to dense, rich ecosystems of networks, clouds, financial and IT service providers. The SX NEXT cable enhances network performance across industries in the region and boosts the aggregate capacity of Southern Cross’ existing Trans-Pacific eco-system by approximately 500%. Southern Cross also utilizes Platform Equinix® to provide critical on-ramps to the Southern Cross network ecosystem at SY1 and SY5 in Sydney, Australia, as well as SV1, Silicon Valley and SV8, Palo Alto, and LA1, Los Angeles in the U.S.

With the release of 400GbE (Layer 1 and 2) capability on the Southern Cross network earlier this year, customers can now take advantage of the lowest latency, secure 400G Data-Center inter-connections between key Equinix facilities in Sydney, Australia and the U.S. West Coast.

Highlights / Key Facts:

  • The subsea cable momentum has accelerated worldwide as digital transformation continues to increase globally. Equinix’s footprint of 250 IBX data centers in 71 global markets across 32 countries provides the metro edge points of presence (PoPs) required to deliver low-latency interconnection for transporting increasing volumes of internet traffic. At Equinix, subsea cable owners/operators can deploy cable landing stations that open gateways between continents and interconnect businesses around the world.
  • Over the last three years, Equinix has won 50 subsea cable projects and continues to track over 60 projects with go-live dates within the next two years. More than 50 Equinix metros are CLS enabled, meaning that Equinix’s IBX data centers are close enough to the coast to be able to support a CLS deployment.
  • The need for additional capacity between Australia and the U.S. is driven by increased demand for cloud services, content and digital media and e-commerce capabilities, a clear sign of the growing maturity of the Australian digital economy. Content providers are the primary trans-Pacific bandwidth consumers, accounting for almost 78% of bandwidth in 2022.2 Their market dominance only began in 2015; prior to that, internet backbone providers held the largest share of the market. Since then, the demand gap between the two has continued to widen as content providers have maintained their rapid growth over the years.
  • The trans-Pacific demand has grown at a CAGR of 41% over the past five years—significantly more than the 26% CAGR of internet backbone providers. In 2021, the Australian Government announced that it is investing an additional A$1.2 billion to grow Australia’s digital economy by 2030, including investments in infrastructure, skills, cybersecurity, regulations, and digital trade.
  • According to the Global Interconnection Index (GXI) 2023, an annual market study published by Equinix, global interconnection bandwidth – the measure of private connectivity for the transfer of data between organizations – is forecast to reach 27,762+ terabits per second (Tbps) by 2025, representing a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40%, equivalent to 110 zettabytes of data exchanged annually, or enough bandwidth to support over 50 million autonomous cars each exchanging over 2,000 terabytes (TB) of data per year. This forecasted growth shows how organizations are rethinking their business to implement future-proof infrastructure on technology platforms.

Quotes:

Craige Sloots, Director Marketing & Strategy, Southern Cross
“We place high value on working with an industry leader that not only has a significant global presence but understands the intricacies of business in the Pacific region. Equinix’s deep industry knowledge and robust digital ecosystems – where businesses come together to exchange data, unlock collaboration opportunities, and form new markets – enables us to provide innovative technology and network solutions to minimize latency and improve performance for our customers. Trans-Pacific subsea connectivity will continue to be a key enabler in the region for many years to come, and we’re excited about this next phase of interconnection through our work with Equinix.” 

Tim Stronge, VP of Research, TeleGeography

“Bandwidth demand continues to rise at a rapid pace on the Trans-Pacific route. Between 2014 and 2018 alone, used capacity more than quadrupled from 16 Tbps to 69 Tbps; and demand experienced a threefold increase from 2018 to 2022, with the route utilizing over 260 Tbps of capacity last year alone. With the ever-increasing demand for data transmission and the burgeoning digital economies of the Asia-Pacific region and North America, subsea cables are becoming critical infrastructure. These undersea networks are designed to handle immense data volumes at lightning-fast speeds, facilitating seamless international communication and powering the growth of industries like cloud computing, e-commerce, and digital entertainment. As technology advances and new players enter the field, the trans-Pacific subsea cable landscape continues to evolve, promising even greater connectivity and opportunities for innovation in the years to come.

Jim Poole, Vice President, Business Development, Equinix

“As bandwidth reaches unprecedented levels, the volume of subsea cable construction has reached its highest point in the 165-year history of this medium. Major projects are bringing new capacity into emerging and high-growth markets such as Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. And in well-established subsea cable corridors – including the Pacific – there’s new construction to keep up with the growing demand. By supplementing existing trans-Pacific routes, the Southern Cross NEXT cable provides seamless and accelerated interconnection across Platform Equinix, in turn, boosting the digital economy in those regions.”

APAC, Global

Fujitsu Delivers 5G Virtualized RAN Solution for NTT DOCOMO’s Network Services

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Fujitsu’s instrumental role in the roll out of DOCOMO’s 5G commercial services demonstrates its robust support for its customers, as well as the success of its ongoing efforts to further develop the Open RAN ecosystem through technological innovation globally.

Fujitsu strives to support digital transformation (DX) and the creation of dynamic new services for its customers by applying its innovative 5G solutions to a range of real-world industry use cases including smart factories, telemedicine, and autonomous driving. Fujitsu also remains committed to the development of environmentally-friendly network solutions to realize a more sustainable future for its customers and society, with plans to deliver 5G virtualized RAN solutions that will potentially reduce total CO2 emissions by 50% or more compared to conventional technologies by 2025.

Features of the virtualized RAN solution

The solution consists of the “Wind River Studio” cloud platform of Wind River, an NVIDIA converged accelerator and the NVIDIA Aerial vRAN software development kit, which is responsible for the physical layer control, and a general-purpose Intel Architecture (IA) server. To realize multi-vendor connectivity by combining various wireless devices (O-RUs) provided by global suppliers, Fujitsu has implemented an open fronthaul (1) interface that conforms to O-RAN ALLIANCE specifications. Fujitsu’s new solution will offer potential customers greater flexibility in selecting equipment, commercial-grade reliability, and cost-effective infrastructure when considering the deployment of 5G commercial network services.

DOCOMO has developed OREX, a service brand that provides optimized O-RAN in cooperation with various global vendors, while Fujitsu is contributing to the global expansion of wireless networks based on open architecture, focused on the provision of its core technology, virtualized RAN solution Functions. DOCOMO has selected Fujitsu’s base station as the first O-RAN compliant 5G virtualized base station in its 5G commercial network based on its high-performance GPU, flexible open fronthaul architecture, and ability to further reduce power consumption.

Sadayuki Abeta, OREX Evangelist, Global Business Department, NTT DOCOMO, INC. comments:

“Open RAN is essential for onward development of mobile networks. Especially, vRAN is key in realizing flexible network evolution. At this time, development of high performance vRAN with Fujitsu base station software and NVIDIA GPU as hardware accelerator has been completed. It will contribute to further development of DOCOMO’s network, and will promote more efficient global deployment of Open RAN by accumulating commercial know-how.”

Ronnie Vasishta, Senior Vice President, Telecom, NVIDIA, comments:

In the development of O-RAN, Fujitsu and NVIDIA have collaborated to provide a software-defined, scalable and flexible vRAN solution with NVIDIA Converged Accelerators including GPUs and DPUs. This collaboration will help bring innovative solutions to global carriers.

Paul Miller, Chief Technology Officer, Wind River comments:

“Distributed cloud networks are highly complex, and in order to advance the industry, it is essential to work closely across the ecosystem. With the integration of our distributed cloud platform and Fujitsu’s vCU and vDU applications, Wind River can continue to deliver proven technology based on Wind River Studio that is live with operators in global deployments.”

Masaki Taniguchi, SVP, Head of Mobile System Business Unit:

“We are very pleased to announce the adoption of our 5G virtualized RAN solution for DOCOMO’s 5G commercial services. Fujitsu’s embrace of open network architecture is central to our ongoing efforts to develop high-quality and secure mobile solutions, contributing to the business development and digitalization of DOCOMO as well as our other valued global telecommunications customers.”

[1] Open fronthaul: Line between base station and radio device controlled by standard O-RAN ALLIANCE interface

[2] SMO :Service and Management Orchestration. Framework that integrates network-wide orchestration (configuring, automating build) and management capabilities