Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced a collaboration with NVIDIA and Palo Alto Networks to deliver an integrated, security-first foundation for AI-native telecommunications.

AI-driven network operations are increasingly becoming central to how service providers manage network complexity, optimise performance, and deliver services faster and more efficiently. AI is no longer just an application-layer technology, it’s becoming foundational to how modern service provider’s networks function.

However, to benefit from this shift, service provider infrastructure must become AI-native, which requires embedding AI directly into network operations, service platforms, and security models across the core, edge, and network. With this in mind, Red Hat is teaming up with NVIDIA and Palo Alto Networks to deliver an optimised architecture, designed for AI from the ground up—creating 2 architectural pillars by using Palo Alto Networks’ security capabilities running on Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat OpenShift AI, powered with NVIDIA AI infrastructure and AI solutions.

An integrated, security-first foundation for AI-native service providers

AI-native service providers require an architecture designed to operationalise AI as part of the network itself across centralised datacentres, edge environments, and network locations.

At the core of this architecture is Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat OpenShift AI, which serves as the common cloud-native platform for AI-native telecommunications (telcos). Red Hat OpenShift and OpenShift AI provide a consistent, enterprise-grade Kubernetes platform to deploy, manage, and govern both network functions and AI workloads across core, edge, and far-edge environments. This operational consistency allows service providers to introduce AI-driven capabilities without fragmenting operations or creating isolated environments.

AI workloads are powered by NVIDIA-accelerated computing systems deployed across the network. NVIDIA RTX PRO Servers provide high-performance, energy-efficient AI acceleration for datacentre and edge AI workloads, while the NVIDIA Aerial RAN Computer (ARC) family of accelerated servers enables AI-driven RAN and network-edge intelligence. Together, these platforms deliver the performance and efficiency required for real-time inference, operational analytics and AI-native network services.

By pairing Prisma AIRS with OpenShift and NVIDIA BlueField, we enable a powerful synergy of centralised and distributed security enforcement—leveraging NVIDIA DOCA steering for hardware-level precision—specifically optimised for the demands of AI-driven telecom workloads. The combination is accelerated by NVIDIA ConnectX to deliver real-time threat detection and policy enforcement. By operating at the infrastructure layer, security is applied consistently across core, edge and network environments without compromising performance or increasing latency.

Rather than relying on loosely coupled components, this approach integrates AI lifecycle management, AI infrastructure and security-first operations into a single, cohesive platform that operates at scale. With an integrated architecture, service providers can benefit from a consistent foundation to deploy AI-driven automation, analytics and services wherever they deliver the most value, while maintaining predictable performance, operational simplicity and built-in security across the distributed network footprint.

Together, Red Hat, NVIDIA and Palo Alto Networks aim to deliver an integrated, AI-native telco stack where cloud-native software, accelerated computing and zero trust security are designed to operate as one system. This enables service providers to evolve beyond hardware-centric networks and build a foundation for scalable AI-driven operations, new services and future 6G-era networks.

Advancing toward AI-native telco networks

Those service providers that embed AI into network operations and service platforms early can gain lasting advantages in efficiency, agility and service differentiation.

At Mobile World Congress (MWC), service providers can connect with Red Hat, NVIDIA and Palo Alto Networks to explore how AI-native architectures can accelerate operational transformation and service innovation. These conversations can help you to identify high-impact use cases such as AI-driven RAN optimisation, predictive maintenance, energy efficiency and automated security enforcement and show how cloud-native platforms, accelerated computing and built-in security come together to support distributed AI workloads.

The transition to an AI-native service provider is a journey, not a single deployment milestone. By making AI a core part of how networks are designed and operated, service providers can position themselves as AI-native businesses—capable of delivering operational excellence, new services and long-term growth in an AI-driven economy.

Find Red Hat and NVIDIA at MWC Barcelona 2026 or visit the Palo Alto Networks Technology Partner Portal to learn more.