Vapor IO Brings NVIDIA AI Aerial to the City of Las Vegas

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Vapor IO, the creators of Zero Gap™ AI, announced today the deployment of the world's first private 5G artificial intelligence radio access network (AI-RAN) powered by the NVIDIA AI Aerial™ platform with Supermicro in Las Vegas. The innovative solution, powered by Vapor IO’s edge infrastructure, represents a massive leap forward in how telecommunications providers manage and optimize their wireless networks, all while creating exciting new revenue opportunities.

“Vapor’s Zero Gap AI provides the automated infrastructure necessary to implement low-latency services, leveraging NVIDIA AI Aerial to enable voice, video, data and AI applications on a common platform. We have an operational business model that employs the principles of shared infrastructure to radically lower the complexity of deployment for our customers and partners,” said Cole Crawford, CEO and founder of Vapor IO. “And the city leading the charge? Las Vegas, which has signed up as the first live Private 5G customer for NVIDIA AI Aerial, is cementing its status as a major hub for wireless innovation.”

Las Vegas Leads the Charge

With this deployment, Las Vegas is showcasing its commitment to technology innovation and highlighting its ambition to be a leader in private 5G and AI for smart cities.

“We are thrilled to be collaborating with Vapor IO, NVIDIA and its ecosystem partners to bring the world’s first private 5G-based AI-RAN solution to the City of Las Vegas,” said Michael Sherwood, the city’s chief innovation officer. “This deployment marks a significant milestone in our journey towards becoming a smarter, more connected city. The AI-RAN solution will undoubtedly propel our smart city initiatives to new heights, enabling us to deliver improved services and a better quality of life for our residents and visitors.”

Las Vegas will use NVIDIA AI Aerial to deploy several thousand cameras across the city in 2025. This platform will allow Las Vegas to dynamically shift workloads between edge data centers and optimize performance in real time. Whether it’s enabling application experiences, powering autonomous drones or supporting smart infrastructure, NVIDIA AI Aerial helps ensure that the city’s network can meet any demand.

What NVIDIA AI Aerial Is, and Why It Matters

At its core, NVIDIA AI Aerial is an open AI-RAN platform that delivers AI and RAN services on a common accelerated infrastructure, and optimizes network performance with AI. AI-RAN is the technology that will drive the next generation of wireless networks, moving from single-purpose to multi-purpose infrastructures that are AI capable and more efficient, while supporting industry standards for 5G, private 5G, Open RAN and 6G in the future.

This first deployment of private 5G AI-RAN in Las Vegas uses the NVIDIA Aerial CUDA-accelerated virtual RAN software stack and NVIDIA MGX™ with GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip accelerated computing reference design along with Supermicro technologies. The collaboration with Vapor IO is key, as its Zero Gap AI edge infrastructure makes it possible to bring AI-driven compute power right to the network’s edge. With this solution, the City of Las Vegas will be capable of handling some of the most demanding applications, enabling a wide range of new revenue streams.

“AI applications infused with private 5G networks can supercharge smart city initiatives, enabling cities to gather, analyze and act upon vast amounts of data in real time to enhance the city’s experience. AI-RAN technology makes this possible, and this first deployment of private 5G AI-RAN solution using NVIDIA AI Aerial and Vapor IO showcases the extensibility of AI-RAN to various use cases,” said Soma Velayutham, Vice President of Telecom at NVIDIA.

New Era of Scalable Network Monetization

Vapor IO and its Zero Gap AI platform offer a carrier-neutral, multi-tenant infrastructure to telecom, cloud operators, service providers and large-scale entities. Using this platform with NVIDIA AI Aerial, customers and partners are enabled to quickly deploy, operate and monetize their networks. For larger operators, Zero Gap AI significantly lowers the complexity of deploying nationwide edge services with pre-integrated solutions not normally serviced by internet backbones. With Zero Gap AI, customers and partners can deploy edge-to-edge, certifying once and deploying in multiple markets.

As shown with the first NVIDIA AI Aerial deployment in Las Vegas, Zero Gap AI’s platform provides the foundation for bringing a service provider's platform to market. With Zero Gap AI as a foundation, AI-ready networks can unlock new revenue and product opportunities for a multitude of industries.

The Future Today

Deploying the NVIDIA AI Aerial platform in Las Vegas with its private 5G AI-RAN capabilities for smart cities maps forward how cities, enterprises and telecommunication providers can optimize their networks for revenue. This collaboration lays the groundwork for AI and connectivity to offer network monetization through a turnkey platform built atop Vapor IO’s edge architecture and Zero Gap AI solution.

The NVIDIA AI Aerial platform is available in Las Vegas to demo at Mobile World Congress, October 8 - 10, 2024 (MWC), where the city will host the world’s top telecom innovators. The demo will feature live video inferencing on the MWC show floor.