Samsung Electronics and Vodafone Group lauded the results of their latest open RAN equipment test, which demonstrated a data call using architecture including AMD processors at the vendor’s R&D facility in South Korea.

The partners stated the demo was a first for the industry and represented a joint commitment to push the market and expand their ecosystem.

Samsung noted it used an open RAN-compliant vRAN software powered by AMD EPYC 8004 processors on Supermicro telecoms edge servers, supported by a platform from Wind River.

During the test, the companies assessed the performance, energy efficiency and interoperability of the various elements. They stated data throughput exceeded 1Gb/s, with details of the session to be showcased at MWC Barcelona 2024 later this month.     

“The joint demonstration represents Samsung and Vodafone’s ongoing commitment to reinforce their position in the open RAN market and expand their ecosystem with industry-leading partners,” the pair added.

Vodafone network strategy and engineering director Nadia Benabdallah (pictured, third from left) said the open architecture represented a “forthcoming major transformation in advancing mobile networks for the future”.

Head of R&D at Samsung’s Network Business unit June Moon (pictured, second from left) added: “This collective effort marks a key milestone for the mobile network industry to steer open RAN forward, by embracing multiple providers at every layer of the network stack.”

The test is the latest collaboration between the pair after Samsung won a contract to play a major role in Vodafone’s deployment of open RAN infrastructure in the UK.