5G Standalone: The Next Step Toward an AI-Driven Future

Mettis Global carried an opinion piece dated August 17, 2026, written by Kevin Murphy, president of Ericsson for North Middle East. Murphy argues that the telecom network is often neglected in discussions about artificial intelligence, even as companies spend heavily on data centres and optical links. He argues that older networks should give way to 5G standalone, a cloud-native design that operates independently of 4G infrastructure.

According to the article, AI traffic behaves very differently from mobile broadband, which was built mainly for human users. Live AI assistants and enterprise systems constantly swap data between devices and the cloud, producing sessions that lean heavily on uplink and are sensitive to latency. Murphy also points to physical AI in self-driving vehicles, drones and smart glasses, along with AI agents handling financial transactions, where even small delays can change outcomes.

The article draws on the latest Ericsson Mobility Report, which recorded 3.1 billion 5G subscriptions in Q1 2026. The article also says 5G is projected to become the leading mobile access technology globally by the close of 2027, roughly nine years after launch. Around 390 operators have introduced commercial 5G, and more than 90 have begun soft launches of 5G standalone.