NEC Corporation has successfully demonstrated a technology that uses Agentic AI to autonomously manage the lifecycle of the User Plane Function (UPF) in 6G/5G core networks. This breakthrough, achieved in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), significantly reduces the time required for network deployment from several weeks to just a few hours.
The demonstration leverages 'Kiro,' an AWS agentic AI equipped with an integrated development environment and command-line interface. This innovation not only accelerates service rollout but also enhances operational efficiency by minimizing human intervention through automated anomaly detection and self-healing operations.
Traditionally, deploying network functions involved extensive manual configuration, demanding advanced technical expertise and increasing the risk of human error. These challenges often led to prolonged service rollout timelines and higher operational costs. By embedding its commercial network expertise into AI models, NEC has enabled the automation of UPF deployment procedures, facilitating truly autonomous network operations suitable for production environments.
The collaboration with AWS allows NEC to apply cloud-native operational models directly to communications service provider environments, supporting flexible deployment across various network locations, including edge and on-premises systems. This initiative not only reduces deployment time but also democratizes advanced network deployment capabilities, allowing operators to focus on service differentiation rather than manual operations.
Amir Rao, Global Director, GTM and Telco Solutions at AWS, emphasized the importance of AI-driven automation in the telecommunications industry, noting that it provides a competitive advantage by serving customers faster and reducing operating costs. Takashi Sato, Corporate Senior Vice President at NEC, highlighted that this technology aims to enable autonomous operations and improve end-to-end efficiency across UPF deployment and operations, contributing to the realization of autonomously operable mobile networks required for the 6G era.
The technologies used in this project were partly funded by a grant from the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology in Japan. A demonstration of this innovation will be showcased at the AWS booth during MWC Barcelona 2026, the world’s largest mobile industry event.
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