The Healey-Driscoll administration is dishing out accolades to Northeastern University for nailing a cool $6 million in federal grants poised to bolster the future of zippy mobile networks. These dollar bills come courtesy of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund. It's a big win for the university's Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things (WIoT) and a nod to Massachusetts' brainy rep in the tech game.
“Massachusetts has a proud history of paving the next frontier of telecommunications and is continuing this tradition through the initiative of our colleges and universities, who are staying on the cutting edge of mobile tech,” gushed Governor Maura Healey in a statement obtained by Mass.gov. The bucks from Uncle Sam, which are a slice of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 pie, are expected to slice costs, jazz up competition, and shrink security risks for our cell phone chit-chats and internet surfing.
A montage of heavy-hitting projects gets to share the loot. There's the TENORAN project, grabbing $2 million to put Open RAN systems through their paces with high-fidelity tests—a collab with Dell Technologies and NVIDIA. Then, on November 28, 2023, DigiRAN bagged another $2 million to unravel the mysteries of open RAN interoperability, security, and performance. Kicking off the 2024 funding spree, AutoRAN, along with buddy Nvidia, scored a final $2 million chunk on January 10 to automate "end-to-end continuous testing for open and disaggregated cellular systems."
Our local economic bigwig Secretary of Economic Development, Yvonne Hao, piped up about the gains, touting Northeastern's hustle to beef up mobile network infrastructure. “We’re grateful for the support of the Biden Administration and the NTIA for enabling Northeastern University to pioneer technological advancements, break barriers, build a hub for economic development, and provide workforce opportunities for their student population.” Hao sung their praises in a statement echoed by Mass.gov.
Northeastern already has some fancy tech toys like the Colosseum—their heavyweight network emulator, and an FCC Innovation Zone for guinea-pigging new gizmos and networks. With this influx of cash, the real deal is setting up a one-of-a-kind facility for testing out 6G wireless stroked with a bit of AI brilliance. The university is gunning for a head start in the game, serving up a platter of advanced training and jobs in the process.
