Ericsson partners with Intel on AI-native 6G

Ericsson and Intel announced at Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2026 that they would work together to accelerate ecosystem readiness for AI-native 6G, an initiative framed as a move to help transition 6G from research into commercial deployments.

The companies said the effort aimed to make the path to 6G more open, efficient and cost-effective for operators and the broader ecosystem, and that as 6G moved from research to commercial reality the industry required a collaborative, ecosystem-aligned approach with global standards bodies and industry organizations to turn research into deployable infrastructure.

The collaboration described work spanning mobile connectivity, cloud technologies and compute capabilities, covering AI-driven Radio Access Network (RAN) and packet core use cases, together with platform-level security and network capabilities. The partners said the effort targeted future high-performance and energy-efficient compute architectures designed for both Artificial Intelligence (AI) for networks and Networks for AI, and that AI-native 6G combined intelligent, programmable networks with advanced compute and real-time sensing.

The agreement extended a decades-long relationship and covered compute, connectivity, cloud and standards leadership across the core network, RAN and edge; the partners presented multiple demonstrations of their joint work at MWC 2026 across Ericsson and Intel exhibition spaces and in various ecosystem partner event areas.

Börje Ekholm, President and CEO, Ericsson, said: “6G is not merely an iteration of mobile technology. It is the infrastructure that will distribute AI across devices, the edge and the cloud. Ericsson's long history of network innovation and large-scale operator deployments positions us to lead practical integration across the value chain and move 6G from research into commercial reality.”

The companies said their future work included Ericsson silicon powered by Intel's advanced process nodes, ongoing multi-year research plans and flexible AI-RAN‑ready Cloud RAN powered by Intel Xeon to pursue future performance, efficiency and supply security for operators.