25 March 2025
- Ericsson, a global leader in telecommunications infrastructure, and major European research center Forschungszentrum Jülich are collaborating to develop technologies for continued evolution of 5G, and for the introduction of 6G networks across Ericsson's product portfolio.
- The project aims to leverage JUPITER, Europe's first "exascale" supercomputer, to design and test new artificial intelligence solutions for the complex demands of 6G.
- Key objectives include exploring ultra-efficient, "brain-inspired" computing approaches ("neuromorphic computing") to handle intense network tasks and strengthening Europe's digital infrastructure.
Ericsson and Forschungszentrum Jülich aim to push the boundaries of network performance and efficiency, ensuring future solutions use as little energy as possible, while delivering exceptional intelligence and performance.
The new collaboration brings together Ericsson's global leadership in telecommunications with Jülich's world-renowned expertise in high performance computing and next-generation computing technologies, including its work on JUPITER, Europe's most powerful supercomputer, by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC). The partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding yesterday, 24 March 2026.
Ericsson provides infrastructure, software, and services enabling mobile connectivity worldwide. The company builds and operates a significant share of the "invisible infrastructure" that underpins mobile communications and the internet.
A key focus of the collaboration is on highly efficient, brain-inspired computing approaches (neuromorphic computing'), which aim to open up new possibilities for processing complex network tasks and advancing the underlying technologies that enable next-generation infrastructure.
The partners will explore advanced AI and High-Performance Computing (HPC) solutions that will underpin the continued evolution of 5G and form the foundation of future 6G networks. The first commercial 6G services are expected around the year 2030.
Statements
Prof. Laurens Kuipers, member of the Executive Board of Forschungszentrum Jülich, says:
This collaboration has the potential to make a significant contribution to a more sustainable digital future. By combining our excellence in high-performance computing and our research into novel, brain-inspired computing approaches with Ericsson's expertise in telecommunications, we aim to develop more energy-efficient network solutions and strengthen a sovereign European digital infrastructure.
Nicole Dinion, Head of Architecture and Technology, Cloud Software and Services, Ericsson, says:
The future of mobile networks is deeply intertwined with AI and the need for unparalleled energy efficiency. Our collaboration with Forschungszentrum Jülich, for years a global leader in supercomputing and applied physics, combines their research and computing power with our expertise in all domains of telecoms technology. We will explore architectures that define the next generation of telecommunication.
Research
The new partnership will explore AI models and methods to enhance Ericsson's core network, network management, and Radio Access Network (RAN).
The collaboration covers several areas of research:
- AI methods for Ericsson products across the full portfolio: systematic benchmarking of approaches to assess execution speed, scalability to large datasets, information retention, and storage efficiency. Where security and commercial conditions permit, the teams may also use JUPITER for large-scale model training, leveraging its compute resources.
- Energy-efficient computing for AI inference at the radio and edge: developing and prototyping highly efficient solutions for tasks such as radio channel estimation and Massive MIMO - a key technology in modern mobile networks, in which many devices communicate simultaneously via numerous antennas. This includes exploring novel system architecture approaches like neuromorphic computing (e.g., memristors) to speed up optimization and reduce energy use versus classical methods.
- HPC and cloud architectures and operations for AI: researching and implementing Modular Supercomputing Architecture (MSA) concepts from exascale work at Forschungszentrum Jülich - in particular, at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) - and studying operational strategies, such as heat recovery, to boost energy efficiency in HPC and cloud deployments.
The collaboration will provide insights into the feasibility of cloud strategies based on concepts from the EuroHPC ecosystem, which is establishing a world-class supercomputing infrastructure with leading European centers such as the JSC.
