Vodafone Egypt has commercially deployed Ericsson's AI-powered RAN Processor 6672, moving artificial intelligence workloads from central locations directly onto radio sites for the first time in its network. The Swedish vendor announced the deployment on Thursday.

The processor, built for 5G Advanced and AI workloads, lets Vodafone Egypt run AI in the radio access network itself. That means the network can respond to changing conditions throughout the day instead of relying on parameters that engineers adjust only periodically. In practice, the operator can direct radio capacity toward wherever customers are actually consuming it — a shift from static, manually tuned configuration to continuous automated optimization.

Ericsson claims the chip delivers up to four times higher processor capacity while cutting energy consumption by more than 50%. The company also says a single RAN Processor 6672 replaces three basebands, simplifying site architecture and reducing site-level power draw. These figures come from the vendor; independent performance data from the deployment has not been published.

For Vodafone Egypt, the commercial logic centers on investment efficiency. Dalia Merheb, country manager and head of sales at Ericsson Egypt, said the deployment lets the operator extract more performance from existing spectrum and sites while improving user experience without a proportional rise in energy consumption.

"The deployment of RAN Processor 6672 supports Vodafone Egypt in addressing growing capacity requirements while simplifying radio sites and improving energy efficiency," Merheb said in a statement. "It also creates a stronger foundation for continued network evolution and the introduction of new capabilities as traffic demand and network requirements continue to grow."

Vodafone Egypt's technology director, Catalin Buliga, confirmed the operator is rolling the processor out across all Ericsson-supplied RANs in Greater Cairo and the Delta — the two regions where the vendor's equipment serves the operator's network.

"With Ericsson's RAN Processor 6672, we are increasing our efficiency in terms of processing power and energy consumption for our Ericsson radio sites, while enabling AI to run directly on the radio site for better customer experience," Buliga said.

The deployment illustrates how RAN intelligence is shifting from centralized data centers toward the network edge. Running inference at the radio site removes the latency and backhaul burden that comes with round-tripping data to a central AI location, and it aligns with the industry direction set out in 3GPP's 5G Advanced work, which embeds AI and automation deeper into RAN operations.

Energy consumption is the other driver. Mobile operators face rising traffic with flat or shrinking energy budgets, and baseband consolidation — here, three units collapsing into one — is one of the few levers that reduces power draw without touching coverage or capacity. Ericsson's claim of a 50%+ reduction in processor energy use, if borne out in Vodafone Egypt's live network, would strengthen the case for AI-native silicon as an efficiency tool rather than a performance luxury.

Vodafone Egypt has not disclosed deployment timelines beyond the Greater Cairo and Delta regions, nor has it published subscriber or site counts tied to the rollout. What is clear is the direction: Buliga framed the processor as a foundation for new capabilities as traffic demand grows, and the operator's phased rollout across its Ericsson footprint suggests further site upgrades will follow.