O-RAN ALLIANCE Summit at MWC Barcelona 2026: Capturing AI-Enabled Open RAN Opportunities Today and in Tomorrow’s Open 6G
Invitation to the O-RAN ALLIANCE Summit at MWC Barcelona 2026.
O-RAN Global PlugFest Fall 2025 Showcased Continued Evolution of Advanced Use Cases and Scenarios Featuring AI in the RAN
Our first 6G workshop, held in Dallas in October 2025, formally initiated the structured and collaborative approach to O-RAN ALLIANCE’s contribution to an open, intelligent 6G, and to aligning O-RAN’s 6G readiness with 3GPP’s evolving 6G work.
Since July 2025, O-RAN Work Groups and Focus Groups published 76 technical documents, bringing the total to 143 unique titles in current version and 946 documents overall. Nine documents represent new titles.
This white paper explores advanced strategies to enhance energy efficiency in O-RAN based networks, building on existing techniques such as Cell and Carrier Shutdown and RF Channel Reconfiguration. It introduces innovative approaches for optimizing power consumption in key network elements, including Radio Units (O-RU) through dynamic voltage adaptation and renewable energy integration, and O-Cloud environments via intelligent workload management and energy-efficient Cloud Network Functions. Aligned with 3GPP Release-18 features like Discontinuous Transmission/Reception (DTX/DRX) and spatial power-saving methods, these strategies aim to substantially reduce energy consumption while maintaining high performance and service quality.
Central to these strategies are the intelligent capabilities of the O-RAN framework, particularly the Service Management and Orchestration (SMO), Non-Real-Time RAN Intelligent Controller (Non-RT RIC), and Near-Real-Time RAN Intelligent Controller (Near-RT RIC). Working in harmony, the SMO orchestrates resources across the network, the Non-RT RIC leverages rApps to develop AI/ML-driven long-term optimization policies, and the Near-RT RIC employs xApps to execute near real-time network adjustments. Together, these components provide a cohesive, intelligent framework that drives the dynamic and effective implementation of the energy-saving solutions detailed in this paper, positioning O-RAN as a leader in sustainable and efficient network operations.
It is important that 5G and next-G networks providing critical infrastructure and mission critical use cases are built with a Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) to protect against external and internal threats. ZTA is the evolution of the zero trust concept to a concrete plan based upon multi-layered security controls that provide confidentiality, integrity, availability, authentication, and authorization protections from internal and external threats. The O-RAN ALLIANCE is committed to pursue a ZTA through stages of a maturity model that achieve a strong security posture to protect against evolving threats.
Read the full announcement here.
Vodafone has made significant progress six months into its five-year radio access network (RAN) investment programme to improve connectivity for its 355 million customers across Europe and Africa.
Read the full announcement here.
Join us in Barcelona or watch online broadcast from the O-RAN ALLIANCE Summit at MWC Barcelona 2026, on 3 March 2026.
This summit explores how leading operators are deploying Open RAN, the role of AI and automation, and enabling 6G to be intelligent and open by design.
