If daffodils are blooming, and Spring is nearly in the air, it must be time once again for another MWC event in Barcelona. With GSMA Intelligence predicting that, by 2030, there will be 6.3 billion unique mobile subscribers globally, with five billion global 5G connections and the number of connected IoT devices set to reach over 15 billion in two years, it is no exaggeration to say mobile networks touch on and impact everyone’s personal and professional lives.
This year, MWC is happening around mid-cycle for 5G deployment. Initial 5G networks have been deployed, with the transition to 5G Advanced running on network slicing-capable, standalone networks fulfilling the whole vision and capability of 5G.
O-RAN seems to have found its footing, moving beyond innovator-driven greenfield deployments to mainstream, traditional vendors and Tier 1 operators. With the core 5G engineering and specification complete, talk is now of 6G, even though initial deployments are slated around 2030 when technical bake-offs and first specifications are complete.
Now, the emphasis moves to applications and users. Connectivity is simply a means to an end, and the end is applications and experiences. Whether it is network operations, customer relationships, or applications, AI is omnipresent.
Supermicro is demonstrating its solutions in alignment with the MWC themes of Connecting Everything, Manufacturing DX, Humanising AI, and Our Digital DNA
A pioneer in O-RAN for connectivity, Supermicro has offerings incorporating chipsets from all the major semiconductor vendors – namely Intel, AMD, ARM, and Nvidia – meeting the desire of Mobile Network Operators for supplier diversity.
Supermicro will display in its booth (#2D35) a highly integrated, cost optimised Intel 4th Gen XEON with vRAN boost as well as an AMD EPYC based Siena solution that was recently featured by Samsung.
Supermicro is also displaying its Nvidia Grace-Hopper solutions that are gaining interest for their ability to support both O-RAN and Edge AI applications. The product is based on ARM solutions and are also being demonstrated at the ARM, Fujitsu, NEC, and SynaxG stands.
Supermicro has a complete line of products supporting 5G Core, deployed with our partner Rakuten Symphony, and Data Center Operations. Highlighted products include sonic switches, storage for AI data sets, and rack scale multi-node servers incorporating Nvidia Hopper or AMD MI3000 GPUs.
Closer to the edge, still on connectivity, Supermicro has a live demo based on the Celona Private Network solution. Supermicro will showcase an Edge Cloud RAN solution featuring WindRiver on AMD EPYC 8004.
Many edge customers want to use servers on-prem while still being able to take advantage of hyperscale cloud solutions. To this end, Supermicro highlights an AWS Anywhere for 5G Edge, allowing an enterprise to run an AWS Edge cloud solution on Supermicro servers.
These are often deployed in Manufacturing and Industry 4.0 environments and can respond extremely quickly to inputs near where the data is being generated, while also reducing network traffic to on-prem or cloud data centres.
In line with the MWC “Humanising AI” theme, Supermicro has Large Language Model (LLM), retail-orientated Generative AI at the Edge, interactive in conjunction with partners NVIDIA, Eviden, and Store Genius, with voice based digital concierge, which must be seen to be appreciated.
A core tenet of the “Our Digital DNA” MWC theme is sustainability. Supermicro is a pioneer and leader in green computing and is showcasing several liquid cooling solutions. Liquid cooled data centres operate at significantly higher power and real-estate efficiency while enabling additional heat recovery opportunities.
In summary, Supermicro is showcasing several solutions with partners, highlighting where edge computing is going. The advantages of the latest technology breakthroughs are allowing more intelligent decisions to be made near where the data is generated and advancing high end computing technologies in the data centre. 2024 and beyond will change how data is used and assimilated and decisions are made.
For more information about Supermicro’s Telco 5G Core, 5G RAN, 5G Platforms & 5G Servers solutions, visit: https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/5g
