The company said the open lab, which is located in Rome, will help develop multi-vendor SDN and NFV technologies addressing the telco cloud space.
Operators will be able to access the cloud platform virtually from any of their premises worldwide.
The cloud lab is said to allow operators to experiment and learn how cloud infrastructure could be designed and integrated in their existing environments.
"Cloud will enable the biggest evolution of the telecom business and this new lab is an example of Ericsson's passion for driving innovations in Italy,” said Nunzio Mirtillo, head of region Mediterranean at Ericsson.
"As great ideas come from collaboration, operators can turn cloud-based approaches to their advantage and implement new architectures that provide network efficiency and shorter time to market for innovative services," he added.
Ericsson is working with operators like Telefonica, Verizon and AT&T to virtualise their networks.