By Divya Chowdhury
DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson expects the United States to continue to be at the forefront of technology development under President Donald Trump, which the company is ready to take advantage of, its chief technology officer said.
The industry is now in full-execution phase of OpenRAN, CTO Erik Ekudden told the Reuters Global Markets Forum, adding: “Of course we intend to continue to lead and drive that industry development.”
OpenRAN allows operators to mix and match suppliers in their radio networks. Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia, dominate the global telecoms equipment market with their proprietary technologies.
The focus is now on building artificial intelligence (AI)data centers and also leveraging that AI to optimize the performance of 5G networks, Ekudden said.
That is why every country needs to have innovation strategy to build on 5G and AI, he added.
“I expect U.S. to continue to push ahead in that, and if anything, the opportunities just seem fantastic right now to put in an extra gear and then make sure that we are part of that,” Ekudden said.
He also said Ericsson’s local-for-local manufacturing model gives it an advantage, helping it rely less on global trade and supply chains, as threats of a trade war loom under the new U.S. administration.
However, Ekudden said it was still early days to speculate on tariffs.
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(Reporting by Divya Chowdhury in Davos and Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
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