Earlier last month, the mobile industry gathered in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress 2025, where AI's potential impact on telecommunications took center stage. As operators worldwide consider building networks capable of taking advantage of the AI revolution, Samsung Networks' booth held a spotlight not just on concepts, but also commercial solutions that bridge today's infrastructure with tomorrow's AI demands.

Commanding the Market: Samsung's vRAN & Open RAN Leadership

Samsung's position as the global leader in virtualized RAN (vRAN) and Open RAN was the key differentiator for its innovation for AI-RAN. Samsung presented its years of end-to-end network virtualization journey and continued vRAN and Open RAN expansion, as well as its robust partner ecosystem ranging from servers, processors and cloud platforms. According to the Dell'Oro RAN report, Samsung has been recognized as the global market share leader in the Open RAN and vRAN markets for 2024. This leadership represents real-world deployments at scale, with Samsung on track to exceed 53,000 commercial vRAN sites with its current customers by the end of 2025.

This achievement demonstrates both Samsung's technical capabilities and the trust operators place in its solutions. For context, Samsung's vRAN technology has already proven itself in high-profile environments – handling massive data traffic seamlessly during one of the world's most-watched sporting events.

Architecting the Future: Software-Based Networks as AI's Launchpad

Another key theme of Samsung's MWC presence was how the company's end-to-end software-based network provides the optimal platform for AI. Effective AI implementation and automation requires a dynamic, flexible, data center environment and Samsung's approach enables this architecture with uniform software running on common hardware – making it dramatically easier to collect, analyze and apply data across all layers of the network.

This methodology matters because, in the AI era, data is the new gold. AI-driven data traffic is expected to grow exponentially in the future, requiring networks to become more intelligent, automated, and scalable to manage the increasing complexity and volume of data. Networks need to evolve into "telco AI data centers" to handle this transformation, and Samsung's virtualized network solutions are designed to facilitate this evolution.

From Concept to Reality: AI-RAN Solutions Available Today

While AI-RAN was a major buzzword at MWC, Samsung stood apart by demonstrating solutions that are commercially available today, not just roadmap concepts.

Samsung's software-based architecture allows for seamless integration of AI capabilities via CPUs and GPUs that can be easily deployed at any network layer – from central to edge data centers and even cell sites. What sets Samsung's approach apart is that operators can adopt AI capabilities without requiring completely new infrastructure investments – they can simply add AI acceleration to their existing Samsung vRAN network, reducing both capital expenditure and implementation time while taking advantage of applications that help lower operational expenditure. Samsung also showcased its expanding ecosystem with CPU and GPU partners.

Already beyond conceptual phases, Samsung highlighted its AI-based Energy Saving Manager (AI-ESM) at its booth. AI-ESM orchestrates diverse RAN energy saving features and automatically adjusts threshold values based on traffic patterns, which can significantly improve energy efficiency without compromising network performance. In partnership with Verizon, Samsung has achieved an average of 15% and maximum 35% in energy efficiency in Verizon's commercial network using this solution.

Samsung also featured its CognitiV Network Operations Suite (NOS) Copilot, an AI assistant that can streamline network operations and management in collaboration with AWS. This “assistant-like” platform offers an intuitive interface for operators, presenting data in a clear, readable format. The tool translates raw data into tangible insights, enabling operators to make informed decisions without the need for extensive expertise.

In addition, as one of the founding members, Board of Directors (BOD) and Vice Chair of WG #3 (AI-on-RAN) of AI-RAN Alliance, Samsung is actively participating in industry organizations and closely looking into changing trends. 

Powering the AI Revolution: Samsung's Vision for Tomorrow

MWC 2025 reinforced that the future of telecom will be software-based, AI-powered and open. As operators prepare for the projected shift of AI traffic from cloud to edge computing, Samsung's flexible, multi-purpose platform approach positions the company as the ideal partner for this transformation.

By embracing a software-first strategy that makes AI integration seamless and building a robust ecosystem with partners across CPU, GPU and infrastructure providers, Samsung continues to lead the industry toward more flexible, powerful and intelligent networks that will power the next wave of AI-driven innovations.