With three decades of expertise in application delivery, F5 is a recognized leader in its field, respected for its vision and reputation for innovation. The company and its leadership regard AI as a transformative element in mobile networks, particularly within the RAN.

We checked in with Richard Lopez, Senior Strategic Architect on the Service Provider team focused on strategy and solution development for Telco and AI applications, to learn more about F5, its mission, and how membership in the Alliance fits its vision of the future.

About F5

F5 delivers and secures apps and API globally. With over 30 years of expertise, F5’s Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP) empowers Telco Service Providers with cloud-native, scalable, and secure infrastructure solutions that support 5G, AI, and multi-cloud environments. In the AI space, F5 enables high-performance traffic management, observability, and security for AI workloads for greater efficiency, control, visibility, and performance.

F5’s core mission—delivering and securing every app and API—aligns seamlessly with the AI-RAN Alliance’s mission of revolutionizing telecom by embedding AI across the RAN to enable smarter, more efficient, and more adaptable mobile networks. As AI and RAN apps increasingly share infrastructure, F5 seeks to enable and secure scalable deployment across diverse environments.

Why join AI-RAN Alliance?

F5 sees immense potential in the convergence of AI and RAN technologies. “With lessons learned from vRAN and O-RAN initiatives combined with the power of AI there is real potential to reshape the telecom landscape, F5 is excited to collaborate with fellow industry leaders to explore transformative AI-RAN use cases,” explains Lopez. “The Alliance offers a unique opportunity to accelerate innovation and redefine what’s possible in mobile networks.”

What does the future look like to F5?

“F5 views AI as a game-changer for mobile networks—especially within the RAN,” predicts Lopez. “By integrating AI workloads alongside traditional RAN functions, operators can unlock smarter, more efficient services. This fusion promises not only operational gains like energy savings and improved efficiency, but also the ability to deliver AI-powered services to both consumer and enterprise markets.” Looking forward, F5 identifies two major opportunities for AI-RAN:

• Spectral and energy efficiency: AI can dramatically optimize how networks use spectrum and power.
• Far-edge inferencing: Leveraging RAN infrastructure for AI inferencing at the edge opens new revenue streams for Telcos and enhances service delivery.

“F5 is interested in the AI-and-RAN and AI-on-RAN working groups. Deploying and securing AI and RAN workloads on shared infrastructure will be crucial for these groups’ success, and F5 is excited to contribute its experience in mobile networks, its experience deploying telco cloud-native network functions on NVIDIA DPUs, plus its experience in application delivery and security to these groups,” remarked Lopez.

F5’s 30-year history of matching change with new solutions, and its commitment to innovation and collaboration, position it well to become a highly contributing member to the AI-RAN Alliance and driver in the future of application delivery and security.

Learn More About Membership

The AI-RAN Alliance is advancing a shared vision for AI-native telecom networks. To explore how your organization can join this effort, visit our membership page.