Wind River and Vodafone Collaborate to Advance AI-RAN Operations at Scale for Open RAN
ALAMEDA, Calif. - March 2, 2026. Wind River, an Aptiv company, and Vodafone are teaming up to operationalize AI-RAN for Open RAN networks. You can see the joint solution at MWC Barcelona, March 2-5, in the Wind River booth (Hall 2, Stand 2F25).
Open RAN changes how networks are built. AI-RAN changes how they are operated. As footprints grow and systems disaggregate, manual operations hit a wall. Data is moving faster, telemetry is deeper, and the signal-to-noise ratio punishes slow, human-only reactions.
From dashboards to action
This collaboration moves intelligence from passive dashboards into the operational core. The result: earlier detection, faster adaptation, and a path toward autonomous operation that reduces outage risk and lifts reliability.
"Open RAN fundamentally changes how networks are built; AI-RAN changes how they are operated," said Paul Miller, CTO, Wind River. "Our collaboration with Vodafone demonstrates how AI-RAN can turn operational data into continuous intelligence, enabling networks that detect issues earlier, adapt faster, and move closer to autonomous operation."
"As our networks evolve to support growing demand and more dynamic, open architectures, it's essential that we adopt technologies that continually improve performance, operational efficiency, and reliability," said Marco Zangani, Director of Network Strategy & Architecture, Vodafone Group.
How it works
The solution runs on Vodafone's 5G network and O-Cloud platform, built on container infrastructure from Wind River Cloud Platform with analytics from Wind River Analytics. It ingests high-volume telemetry across RAN and cloud layers; AI models learn baseline behavior, flag subtle deviations, predict emerging issues, and guide remediation before customer impact.
Unlike traditional OSS that analyzes events after the fact, this approach learns continuously from live behavior. Operators shift from reactive troubleshooting to predictive-and increasingly autonomous-operations.
What operations teams can expect
- Cut anomaly detection from hours to minutes through multi-layer telemetry correlation.
- Continuously learn from 70+ TB of network data per week to model long-term behavior across distributed RAN environments.
- Scale short-term learning and troubleshooting analytics in TBs per hour to support real-time decisions.
- Accelerate root-cause identification and remediation, reducing MTTR and limiting service impact.
- Manage larger Open RAN footprints without proportional OpEx or staffing increases.
Why this matters for the industry
- Run larger, more distributed networks without linear OpEx growth.
- Detect degradations before customers notice.
- Shorten recovery cycles and improve service reliability.
- Lay the operational foundation for fully autonomous networks.
Operator playbook: turn AI-RAN into measurable gains
- Expand telemetry coverage across RAN and cloud; correlation is your multiplier.
- Shift from static runbooks to model-driven, closed-loop actions with clear guardrails.
- Track these KPIs: detection latency, MTTR, change failure rate, automated remediation rate, and cost-to-manage per cell/site.
If you're building team capability in this area, explore AI for Operations.
See it at MWC Barcelona
Live demos are running March 2-5 in the Wind River booth (Hall 2, Stand 2F25). To schedule time or request a briefing, visit explore.windriver.com/MWC-2026.
About Wind River
Wind River is a global leader in software for the intelligent edge. For more than four decades, the company has supported devices and systems that demand high levels of security, safety, and reliability across industries including automotive, aerospace, defense, industrial, medical, and telecommunications. Learn more at windriver.com.
Media contact
Jenny Suh, Wind River - 510-749-2972 - jenny.suh@windriver.com
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