As 5G adoption continues globally, researchers are already racing toward 6G implementation. The next generation of connectivity promises major enhancements and significant energy savings.

Realizing 6G’s potential means reimagining telecom infrastructure—and critical building blocks have recently emerged. Converging breakthroughs in virtualization, accelerated computing, open radio access networks (O-RAN), and artificial intelligence (AI) now provide the technical foundation for disruptive AI-powered radio networks.

Booz Allen and NVIDIA have a proven track record working together to accelerate the adoption of technologies that produce impactful mission outcomes—including early deep learning applications, ruggedized edge hardware, and physical AI platforms. We are now combining our expertise in 5G/6G technologies and AI-enabled mission-critical systems with NVIDIA’s transformative technologies to accelerate the delivery of AI-RAN and edge applications.

Together we will deliver across government organizations and service providers to offer:

• Increased spectral efficiency to support higher-bandwidth applications
• Greater capacity for edge-based AI applications and workloads
• The ability to provide GPU-accelerated processing alongside telecom functions
  

In today’s complex geopolitical landscape, these advances will help position America as a leader in AI-native 6G network development.

While 5G delivers exceptional speeds, 6G offers the opportunity to make the network AI-native, enabling extreme spectral efficiency, resource utilization, and optimization of the network as well as multi-tenancy through the hosting of edge AI applications on the same infrastructure as voice, video, and data. This multi-tenancy enables Booz Allen to build and extend the value of AI applications to the edge, where opportunities to reduce inference latency and increase operational decision speeds are greatest. As physical AI and agentic AI applications scale, AI-native wireless networks will become the fabric for distributed intelligence.

Additionally, by dramatically reducing latency and increasing bandwidth, 6G networks will enable novel uses of AI to transform edge computing. Powerful AI applications will run efficiently and effectively even in remote mission environments. Richer data exchange between edge devices and the network will support highly complex AI-enabled models. And boundaries between cloud, edge, and device will be replaced by a continuum in which AI workloads dynamically flow wherever processing is most optimal.

With AI embedded in software-defined 6G networks, networks will become future-proof with the ability to introduce newer AI models as software upgrades. AI models will maximize spectrum efficiency by enabling the allocation and processing of RF channels based on learning the dynamic environment and usage patterns compared to static algorithms. As a result, tomorrow’s network systems won’t just be faster, they’ll be smarter, with the ability to constantly reconfigure themselves to optimize performance, predict failure before it happens, and adapt to new demands.

As the bridge between 5G core networks and user devices, RAN is poised for an AI-driven transformation. In today’s network environment, RAN systems manage network capabilities, including resource allocation, traffic management, cell site optimization, and energy efficiency.

In the future, adaptable AI software systems will take the vast amounts of traffic generated through the RAN and utilize it to train AI algorithms to dynamically optimize and improve network performance. The ability to operationalize AI-RAN will be a key tenet of 6G.

Booz Allen is ready to join forces with NVIDIA to develop the AI-native 6G stack. Recently, we’ve developed 5G-enabled asset tracking solutions, developed a network-aware mobile medic application with wireless network programmability intended for first responders, deployed our R.AI.DIO^® capability to provide AI-powered radio signal detection, collaborated with wireless sensor companies on the development of 5G/6G Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and are conducting 6G neural receiver research. We test and refine solutions at our NextG facilities, which include a carrier-grade 5G network, enterprise 5G networks, and an NTIA Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund (PWSCIF) funded O-RAN security test lab.

Additionally, Booz Allen and NVIDIA are applying physical AI—the embodiment of AI into autonomous systems, sensors, and smart infrastructure—to expedite AI RAN engineering in our 6G simulation environment. Using NVIDIA’s Omniverse, NVIDIA AI Aerial, and NVIDIA Issac SIM, we are rendering high-fidelity physics-based environments and wireless channel conditions, training AI models, neural receivers, and optimizing their performance virtually prior to deployment. Our use of sim-ready assets, distributed computing, and software-defined pipelines allows us to automate and push application updates rapidly to physical RAN systems.

By harnessing the power of AI-native wireless networks for 6G, there are exciting opportunities ahead:

• With extreme spectral efficiency and improved latency, billions of edge applications will benefit from faster inferencing, particularly autonomous systems, smart infrastructure sensors, and computer vision.
• With software-defined RAN and open interfaces, the architecture will enable vendor diversity and opportunity for a wider ecosystem to participate. Booz Allen and NVIDIA are working with other U.S. companies to supercharge O-RAN with AI-native capabilities.