AT&T, Comcast join 5G Open Innovation Lab

AT&T and Comcast are joining 5G OI Lab as founding partners

5G Open Innovation Lab (5G OI Lab) announced that U.S. operators AT&T and Comcast have joined its innovation ecosystem as founding partners.

The two companies join the 18 founding and corporate partners, 5G OI Lab said. The lab was established in early 2020 with founding partners T-Mobile US, Intel and NASA.

T-Mobile US has stepped away from involvement in the lab and it no longer actively involved with it. “We are working closely with innovators through programs like our T-Mobile Accelerator, the Tech Experience 5G Hub, T-Mobile Ventures, the T-Challenge and DevEdge,” a T-Mobile US spokesman said. “While we are not currently actively involved with the 5G Open Innovation Lab, we continue to work with many of its graduates to unleash their 5G-powered solutions with our industry-leading network.”

Enter AT&T and Comcast as network operator participants in the lab.

“We are thrilled to welcome AT&T and Comcast as founding partners to help drive our vision to bring industry experts together and, collectively, drive innovation into overlapping ecosystems. 5G and edge are new foundations that can be used to drive new business models and technology across segments and companies,” said Jim Brisimitzis, founder and general partner of the 5G Open Innovation Lab.

“Collaboration is the key to innovation,” said Jay Cary, VP of strategic alliances, corporate strategy at AT&T. “As we continue forging ahead to realize 5G’s full potential, it is important to work with the nimble startup and innovation community so we can move faster and solve real-world technology challenges more holistically and effectively for our customers. We are excited to be part of that start-up thinking with the 5G Open Innovation Lab.”

Tom Nagel, SVP of wireless strategy at Comcast, said: “Engaging with the startup community through our own Lift Labs or with organizations like the 5G Open Innovation Lab is an important factor not only in our own efforts but to push the industry forward in exciting new ways.”

The 5G OI Lab also announced its Batch #8 cohort with $313 million in venture capital raised and 17 multi-stage startups joining the 5G OI Lab’s fall program, which begins this week.

“As evidenced by the 118 startups in our ecosystem, the combination of 5G and edge is unlocking a massive wave of collaborative innovation in Cloud, Edge and AI across every industry from agriculture and power generation to manufacturing, logistics and medicine,” Brisimitzis added.

The multi-stage startups selected for the Lab’s fall Batch #8 represent enterprise solutions in fields such as real-time logistics and tracking, robotics, private mobile network security and IoT enablement.

Through 5G OI Lab’s model of open collaborative innovation, corporate partners work directly with ecosystem startups to accelerate commercialization through proof of concept and go-to-market opportunities, the entity said.

Since the 5G Open Innovation Lab’s program inception in 2020, participating startups and alumni have raised a total of $2.088 billion with several exits valued at over $200 million.