Intel teams up with Reliance Jio to launch 5G networking technology

Global chip maker, Intel Corp has teamed up with Indian telecom giant Reliance Jio to launch 5G networking technology. Intel’s venture capital unit last year invested $250 million in Reliance Industries Ltd’s Jio Platforms unit, saying the two companies would find areas of technology partnership.

 

Intel has meanwhile said that it will work on ‘co-innovations’ with Reliance Jio for its 5G radio-access network (RAN), among other things. Reliance Jio is one of many carriers around the world using a new approach to build 5G networks.

Rather than using gear primarily from telecommunications-specific firms such as Nokia, Ericsson or Huawei Technologies Cos, carriers are shifting toward using software to handle more network functions and tapping the same kind of standard computing equipment used in data centers to run the networks.

Intel, which has lost its core data center and personal computing markets after years of manufacturing troubles with networking chip business working in its favour, has made chips an increasingly important part of its business, growing 20% in 2020 to account for $6 billion of its $77.9 billion in overall sales.

Dan Rodriguez, general manager of Intel’s network platforms group, meanwhile, said that part of that growth has come from Intel’s decision nearly a decade ago to invest in software akin to an operating system for its network chips. The system, called FlexRAN, lets carriers or software firms write code for 5G networks.