AI RAN is projected to account for approximately a third of the RAN market by 2029, according to a new report from Dell’Oro Group. In the near term, the focus within the AI RAN segment will center on Distributed-RAN (D-RAN), single-purpose deployments, and 5G.
“Near-term priorities are more about efficiency gains than new revenue streams,” said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “There is strong consensus that AI RAN can improve the user experience, enhance performance, reduce power consumption, and play a critical role in the broader automation journey. Unsurprisingly, however, there is greater skepticism about AI’s ability to reverse the flat revenue trajectory that has defined operators throughout the 4G and 5G cycles,” continued Pongratz.
Additional highlights from the July 2025 AI RAN Advanced Research Report:
- The base case is built on the assumption that AI RAN is not a growth vehicle. But it is a crucial technology/tool for operators to adopt. Over time, operators will incorporate more virtualization, intelligence, automation, and O-RAN into their RAN roadmaps.
- This initial AI RAN report forecasts the AI RAN market based on location, tenancy, technology, and region.
- The existing RAN radio and baseband suppliers are well-positioned in the initial AI-RAN phase, driven primarily by AI-for-RAN upgrades leveraging the existing hardware. Per Dell’Oro Group’s regular RAN coverage, the top 5 RAN suppliers contributed around 95 percent of the 2024 RAN revenue.
- AI RAN is projected to account for around a third of total RAN by 2029.
