Evidence of growing momentum around AI RAN continued to mount as research organisation Dell’Oro Group forecast revenue from the sector to top $10 billion by 2029, largely fuelled by distributed variants, single-purpose deployments and 5G.

If accurate, the predicted figure would account for around 33 per cent of overall RAN revenue by 2029, but Dell’Oro explained this is not the main driver of the anticipated spread.

“Near-term priorities are more about efficiency gains than new revenue streams”, VP Stefan Pongratz said, pointing to a “strong consensus” AI RAN could “improve the user experience, enhance performance, reduce power consumption and play a critical role in the broader automation journey”.

The company speculates AI RAN is a crucial technology for operators as they move to up levels of virtualisation, intelligence, automation and open RAN.

It added today’s mainstream RAN radio and baseband suppliers are “well positioned” for the initial phases of the AI shift because of a focus on upgrading existing hardware.

But Pongratz noted scepticism about “AI’s ability to reverse the flat revenue trajectory that has defined operators throughout the 4G and 5G cycles”.

Latest membership figures from the AI-RAN Alliance highlight the level of interest in the segment, with the organisation now comprising 100 companies, many of which are leading lights in the operator and vendor sectors.