As enterprises continue to demand faster wireless communications options, the fulfillment of 5G’s promise of higher bandwidth is predicted to drive explosive growth and rapid adoption of this much-hyped technology.
As a result, both new greenfield 5G operators and incumbent carriers are vying for their share of the lucrative market. As it grows easier for customers to change carriers, operators must deliver the promised performance. To do so, they will need to ensure there is enough horsepower in the operator’s data center to handle the growth of both devices and the quantity of data, as that horsepower can make the difference between success and failure in the 5G marketplace.
The 5G Juggernaut
How big is the pent-up demand for the next generation of wireless technology? According to a study by Allied Market Research, the global 5G market is projected to reach $667 billion by 2026, more than doubling every year, with a whopping 122% CAGR over that time frame.1
There seems to be a never-ending list of applications and devices hungry for more bandwidth:
- Connected vehicles, both consumer and commercial fleets, rely on real-time traffic updates and information on road construction to avoid bottlenecks.
- Automation of machinery often demands that real-time readings are collected and sent to the cloud to keep factories and other installations up and running.
- Virtual and augmented reality applications stream media to and from headsets and devices to deliver more realistic and lower latency immersive experiences.
- Enhanced media, such as 4K video, is now streaming to devices everywhere.
Additionally, new use cases will rely on new 5G communications modes to meet ever-changing demands. They include:
- Ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC), which is called for where latency must be reduced to a minimum, such as in remote surgical procedures, intelligent transportation and other mission-critical use cases.
- Enhanced mobile broadband (eMMB), which stresses higher bandwidth and throughput over latency, pushing for possible data rates of 10 Gbps and above.
- Massive machine-type communications (mMTC), which will power the next generation of IoT devices, supporting the exploding density of online devices that are appearing in new intelligent factory, retail and smart city applications.
Together, these new applications and protocols translate to an increased data flow from virtually every market segment globally. And they share one thing: the need for processing horsepower to deliver such services to a rapidly expanding customer base.
The Power Behind 5G
To compete successfully in this market, global communications service providers are looking for breakthroughs in network innovation for virtually all of these new use cases. It is becoming painfully clear to many operators that the existing network infrastructure needs to evolve to support the 5G buildout and the rise of intelligent edge devices across the board.
5G networks bring many changes for operators, including a virtualized, cloud-native network core, added capacity in the ultra-wideband spectrum, and open-standard radio access networks (Open RAN). To enable these capabilities, 5G operators will need newer, more powerful server clusters to power the core and enable a growing list of new edge technologies.
To meet that demand, savvy operators are turning to the power of Intel® 3rd Gen Xeon® Processors for:
- The 5G core itself, using new Xeon processors to power low-latency applications such as AR, gaming, automation, and robotics for medicine and elsewhere.
- Accelerating virtual RAN (vRAN) equipment with solutions based on industry-standard x86 server architecture and open-standard interconnect protocols to simplify deployment, management and maintenance.
- Content delivery networks. Today, content is king and Intel® 3rd Gen Xeon® Processors paired with Intel® Optane™ Persistent Memory (PMem) work together to provide higher throughput and capacity, serve more subscribers, offer higher resolution and reduce latency throughout the core.
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Download NowThe Supermicro Difference
Based on the latest Intel® technology, Supermicro provides the power operators need for the core and support for the ever-increasing demands of edge computing.
To bring their Xeon® CPU performance to life, operators can pair Intel® Xeon® servers with a broad range of other devices and adapters, including FPGAs, Ethernet 800 adapters, Intel® Optane™ PMem, FlexRAN, OpenNESS, Open Visual Cloud and Intel® Smart Edge.
Supermicro’s decades of partnership with Intel® translates to enhanced support for Intel®Select Solutions for vRAN, Visual Cloud Delivery Network, Network NVFI Forwarding Platform and other solutions that are all pretested and verified to enable operators to hit the 5G ground running.
And Supermicro’s eco-friendly building-block approach helps ensure that operators can get the longest possible life from their investment in industry-leading Intel® technology to power their 5G network today and well into the future.
What’s Next?
For more information, go to www.supermicro.com/5g.
1 “5G Technology Market Outlook: 2026,” Allied Market Research, July 2019
