Jio, TM Forum Open Innovation Hub In Mumbai To Step Up Gen AI, LLM Play In Telecom Space

TM Forum, in partnership with Reliance’s telecom arm Jio, has opened the first TM Forum Innovation Hub in Mumbai, which will focus on scaling up the development of generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs) and open digital architecture (ODA).

TM Forum is a global alliance of telecom and tech firms working to remove technology barriers between digital service providers, technology suppliers, consultancies and systems integrators. It has a network in 111 countries and counts the world’s top 10 network and communications providers among its members.

The innovation centre, located at the Reliance Corporate IT Park in Navi Mumbai, will house hybrid teams of talent from across the telecom and tech industry.

The Innovation Hub programme was unveiled two months ago at TM Forum’s annual DTW –Ignite conference in Copenhagen. The pilot phase of the programme is expected to conclude by March next year, with a third pilot project starting shortly. 

The forum will initially focus on the development of TMF Guru, a conversational search-solution capability, for seamless GenAI integration into the telecom landscape to combat challenges related to security, privacy, accuracy, performance and scalability. 

TM Forum further said that the second focus will be accelerating the development of ODA, a modular, componentised, and reusable cloud-native software to replace traditional business support systems (BSS) and operational support systems (OSS). 

Commenting on he development, Reliance Jio chairman Akash Amabni said, “The TM Forum Innovation Hub is about delivering real-world solutions that will change our industry and there is no better way than to lean on talent from across the industry to solve our existing challenges as well as finding better ways to overcome future obstacles.” 

The development comes at a time when the GenAI landscape is booming in India, as well as globally. While Gen AI has existed for a few years, the success of ChatGPT has given a renewed boost to the technology, with startups and corporations aggressively adopting the technology now.

Earlier this year, Reliance Group chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani said India needs to harness AI for innovation and growth to stay competitive.

Jio also announced a partnership with chip designing giant NVIDIA to build an advanced cloud-based AI computing infrastructure.

As per Inc42 data, India is home to more than 70 GenAI startups. These startups together raised over $440 Mn between 2019 and Q3 2023.

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