Ericsson sets up Global AI Accelerator in B'luru

Ericsson on Thursday announced that it has set up a Global Artificial Intelligence Accelerator (GAIA) in Bengaluru. While the primary site will be Bengaluru, secondary one will be in Chennai.

By the end of 2019, GAIA will help create 150 new jobs for data scientists, engineers, Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence architects and software developers.

Apart from India, Ericsson has set up GAIA in the US and Sweden. "One of the guiding principles for choosing India as a hub is the availability of talent here and the ecosystem as a whole," said Sanjeev Tyagi, Head of Ericsson R&D Bengaluru.

The innovation hub will focus on research and development in AI and automation. "This newly launched GAIA facility will be key in accelerating the execution of Ericsson’s focused strategy by leveraging cutting-edge AI and automation technologies to create data-driven, intelligent, and robust systems for automation, evolution, and growth," added Tyagi.

Together, all the three global hubs will create 300 jobs. Tyagi said GAIA in India is a testament to Ericsson’s long-term commitment to India.

GAIA has been set up as a central unit to be able to accelerate projects across Ericsson’s portfolio. Talking about tremendous potential that intelligent leveraging of data can bring to a domain like telecom, Tyagi said, "With the advent of 5G and IoT, we expect to see an explosion in the number of potential ways in which we will use the networks of the future. The traditional methods of managing and running networks will no longer scale. AI/ML driven automation will be a necessity to manage these networks. These data-centric technologies also open up the potential to tap new revenue-generating opportunities and business models for telecom service providers."

5G is not just an incremental technology, it will enable a variety of use cases. Total mobile data traffic is expected to increase five times by 2024 and 25% of it will be driven by 5G.

5G in India by 2022

5G is projected to cover more than 40% of the world's population in 2024, said Tyagi. According to Ericsson's Mobility Report, operators in the US will be among the first to launch 5G commercial services. The country’s four major operators have publicly announced that they will begin providing 5G services between late 2018 and mid-2019. Other markets where significant 5G subscription volumes are expected early include South Korea, Japan and China. Globally, major 5G network deployments are expected from 2020. The report forecast over 1 billion 5G subscriptions for enhanced mobile broadband by the end of 2023.

The report added that in India, GSM/EDGE-only remained the dominant technology in 2017, accounting for over 60% of total mobile subscriptions. In late 2016 and early 2017, the country experienced strong growth in the number of LTE subscriptions, mainly due to attractive free voice and data traffic offers from one operator. As a result, LTE accounted for 20% of all mobile subscriptions at the end of 2017. The transformation toward more advanced technologies is expected to continue in India and, in 2023, LTE is forecast to represent 78% of all mobile subscriptions. 5G subscriptions are expected to become available in 2022.