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Whitepaper Nº04·RAN·June 2026

The AI-Native RAN: What's Standardized, What's Deployed

Mapping 3GPP's AI for the RAN from Rel-18 to Rel-20 — and separating standardized reality from AI-RAN hype.

The AI-Native RAN: What's Standardized, What's Deployed — whitepaper cover

Abstract

3GPP's Rel-18 study mapped three air-interface AI use cases; Rel-19 made beam prediction and positioning normative; Rel-20 took two-sided CSI compression into normative work. The paper separates 3GPP's AI-for-RAN from the AI-RAN Alliance's GPU-convergence agenda and reads the 6G air interface soberly.

Headline finding

3GPP standardized just three air-interface AI use cases — only beam prediction and positioning are normative (Rel-19)

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7 pages · 1.4 MB · free, no email required

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This paper deepens one of our guides. If you want the shorter version first, read that.

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