The Linux Foundation has announced the formation of a new open source project called Nephio, in partnership with Google Cloud and leaders across the telecommunications industry. The project has support from several founding organizations including Service providers: Airtel, Bell Canada, Elisa, Equinix, Jio, Orange, Rakuten Mobile, TIM, TELUS, Vapor IO, Virgin Media O2, WINDTRE as well as Network Function, Service and Infrastructure Vendors: Aarna Networks, ARM, Casa-systems, DZS, Ericsson, F5, Intel, Juniper, Mavenir, Nokia, Parallel Wireless, VMware.

Nephio aims to deliver carrier-grade, simple, open, Kubernetes-based cloud native intent automation and common automation templates that materially simplify the deployment and management of multi-vendor cloud infrastructure and network functions across large scale edge deployments.

Additionally, Nephio will enable faster onboarding of network functions to production including provisioning of underlying cloud infrastructure with a true cloud native approach, and reduce costs of adoption of cloud and network infrastructure.

Arpit Joshipura, GM Networking, Edge & IOT, The Linux Foundation, said, “As end users demand end-to-end open source solutions, projects like Nephio complement the innovation across LFN, CNCF, LF Edge for faster deployment of telecom network functions in a cloud-native world.”