Dell’Oro Group forecasts cumulative revenue from AI-driven radio access networks (AI RAN) will reach US$35 billion over the five years from 2026 to 2030, according to a new research report released on 30 June.
The market research firm said the growth would not expand the overall RAN market, suggesting AI RAN spending will largely shift within existing budgets rather than create significant new revenue for the sector.
“Our market assessment and long-term AI RAN position remain unchanged,” said Stefan Pongratz, vice president at Dell’Oro Group. “AI RAN is already happening and will scale ahead of 6G. At the same time, these tools will enhance the RAN, but they are unlikely to expand the overall RAN market. Even as suppliers introduce new software-based subscription models, we expect AI RAN to generate little, if any, incremental RAN revenue the end of the forecast period,” continued Pongratz.
Dell’Oro’s June 2026 AI RAN Advanced Research Report argues that operators are expected to adopt AI RAN as part of broader moves towards virtualisation, intelligence, automation and O-RAN capabilities. In the near term, the firm said deployments are likely to focus on “AI-for-RAN”, single-purpose implementations, non-GPU architectures, distributed RAN (D-RAN) and 5G.
The report also revises its expectations for GPU-based RAN upward, projecting GPU RAN will exceed US$1 billion by the end of the forecast period.
Dell’Oro added that incumbent RAN radio and baseband suppliers are positioned to lead the initial phase of AI RAN, driven mainly by AI-for-RAN upgrades that leverage existing hardware. The firm said the top five RAN suppliers accounted for about 96% of 2025 RAN revenue, based on its regular RAN market coverage.
