Blog
Where Network Infrastructure Evolves into Enterprise Edge AI Platform: Samsung’s Network in a Server
Feb 12. 2026-
Executive Vice President and Head of Product Strategy, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics
Ji-Yun Seol
As modern businesses and industrial facilities seek to enhance efficiency with AI and other advanced services, private networks are sparking interest across industries. However, real-world enterprise environments often present practical challenges that traditional private network architectures struggle to address.
If you are involved in deploying and operating private networks for enterprises, you might be familiar with this gap between promise and practicality – a challenge often encountered by system integrators, managed service providers and operators.
Space tends to be limited — think of branch offices, retail locations and small manufacturing sites where real estate comes at a premium. Power budgets are tight, and every watt matters when you're trying to keep cooling costs down. Business owners want simplicity, not a room full of physical resources, and to be well-prepared in fully capitalizing AI innovation for greater efficiency and new revenue streams. These constraints have led operators and enterprises to search for a different approach to private 5G deployment.
Unified, software-driven network solution optimized for Edge AI services
Samsung’s Network in a Server(NIS) is a software-driven solution that integrates all private network functions—mobile core, RAN, transport, AI agents and applications—into a single platform. This simple, one-box approach is entirely software-based and running on a COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) server as it virtualizes and consolidates all containerized network functions, eliminating the need for additional hardware. By flexibly leveraging compute power including CPUs and GPUs, this Edge AI solution also lays a solid groundwork for enterprises to harness AI services.
NIS transforms the economics of setting up and operating private networks—streamlining both processes and management by reducing shipping requirements, rack space and power consumption. Enterprises benefit from a smaller footprint, lower operating expenses and a single point of contact for support. The solution carries over Samsung’s extensive experience and expertise in virtualizing network components for macro cells to private networks.
Powerful local processing meets AI integration
Samsung has worked with a diverse set of industry-leading partners, including AMD(CPU), Supermicro(servers) and Wind River(cloud platform) to build a robust ecosystem for its solutions, including NIS. It features an AMD EPYC 8000 Server CPU and can easily integrate GPUs, providing the processing power required to enable specific AI capabilities.
This collaboration with AMD marks a significant milestone: the commercial launch of Samsung's first virtualized solution portfolio with AMD CPUs, further demonstrating the robust and flexible nature of Samsung’s industry leading vRAN and AI-RAN ecosystem. CPUs and GPUs are leveraged directly within the same server, enabling efficient AI and real-time analytics capabilities.
By integrating AI capabilities, NIS enables local processing which is essential for environments that require real-time responsiveness. In turn, this reduces latency and even creates new opportunities for various AI use cases. Additionally, enterprises, institutions and government agencies can keep all data secure and on-premises, fostering greater confidence in deployment and management of the network.
Samsung has validated real world scenarios such as real-time safety monitoring, augmented reality (AR) overlays and industrial sensing, which require millisecond-level response times that cannot tolerate round trips to distant data centers. This demonstrates NIS’ potential to deliver unparalleled performance and security, especially for use cases with an increasing need for AI:
- Video analysis processes feeds from CCTV cameras connected through the private network, assisting with safety-related events in real-time, such as missing hard hats on construction sites, lost items in secure areas or early fire detection.
- Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) technology uses the radio signals for sensing applications while ensuring ubiquitous coverage. The same infrastructure that provides this connectivity also enables parking space detection, drone detection and tracking, vehicular tracking for road safety and smart lighting for public safety.
- Emerging Device connectivity allows novel devices such as AR glasses or XR headsets to overlay contextual information in the user's field of vision. Imagine a business meeting where participant information appears automatically, or sporting events with real-time player statistics.
From vRAN leadership to AI-powered enterprise transformation
With AI transformation accelerating across industrial sites, AI-driven services are being monetized and becoming a core part of next-generation solutions—including physical AI. Using Samsung's NIS, powered by AI, enterprises will unlock new opportunities and AI use cases to monetize beyond traditional models.
Samsung will exhibit its NIS and more applications at MWC Barcelona 2026, further highlighting its leadership in software-based networks.