HPE, Qualcomm to Deliver the Next-Generation 5G Virtualized Distributed Unit Solutions

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Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced plans to collaborate to deliver the next generation of 5G distributed units, powered by Qualcomm Technologies’ inline accelerator card, the Qualcomm X100 5G RAN. This collaboration aims to address the demands of next-generation networks, simplify deployments and lower total cost of ownership (TCO) by delivering high-performance, O-RAN-compliant, energy-efficient, virtualized, cloud-native 5G solutions.  Together, the companies aim to transform how networks are designed and next-generation services are delivered.

This combination of Qualcomm Technologies’ 5G leadership and HPE’s telecommunication infrastructure expertise will help to ensure virtualized and open RAN platforms are ready to support the high-capacity and low-latency demands of future networks that are needed to enhance user experiences.

Network operators currently face the difficult challenge of deploying cost-effective 5G network infrastructure, while addressing the complexities of next-generation networks. Qualcomm Technologies’ and HPE’s 5G RAN virtualized distributed unit (vDU) solution combines the Qualcomm® X100 5G RAN Accelerator Card and the RAN workload optimized HPE ProLiant DL110 Gen10 Plus Telco Server to deliver the industry’s first fully optimized vDU. The system is designed to support up to four high-performance accelerator cards in an extremely small footprint 1U server, which lowers power consumption, even while supporting dense 5G mid-band and massive MIMO use cases. According to a comprehensive joint study by HPE and Qualcomm Technologies, operators will lower TCO by up to 60% for 5G deployments.

“HPE is looking forward to collaborating with Qualcomm Technologies to help address the rigorous and ever-changing demands of 5G,” said Tom Craig, general manager and vice president, communications technology group, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. “Our industry-leading HPE carrier-grade infrastructure integrated with Qualcomm Technologies’ innovative technology will further benefit our customers as they expand the deployment of their 5G networks.”

“We are excited for the opportunity to work with HPE to further the capabilities and efficiencies of 5G virtualed networks,” said Durga Malladi, senior vice president and general manager, 5G, mobile broadband and infrastructure, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Through our collaboration with HPE, we are able to deliver enhanced, powerful and reliable 5G experiences to consumers.”

The Qualcomm® X100 5G RAN Accelerator Card – an optimized and dedicated hardware - is designed to deliver a high-performance, low-latency, and power-efficient solution that is expected to enable cloud-native and virtualized 5G networks deployments by offloading server CPUs from compute-intensive 5G baseband processing. Hardware solutions such as these, powered by our ‘one technology roadmap’ including foundational 5G technologies, further positions Qualcomm Technologies as the edge partner of choice for the cloud economy.