The Radio Access Network is having its Linux moment – and the OCUDU Developer Summit this October is where you can watch it happen live.
For years, telecom infrastructure has been defined by vendor lock-in, closed interfaces, and eye-watering deployment costs. OCUDU is part of a broader push to change that: a carrier-grade, open source software foundation for 5G and 6G that works alongside existing standards like 3GPP and O-RAN rather than reinventing them.
This year’s summit, running October 20–22 at Virginia Tech’s Boeing Auditorium, pulls together the people actually building that future – maintainers, operators, chipmakers, government researchers, and academics – for three days of keynotes, panels, demos and hard technical conversations.
Here are the themes shaping the agenda.
AI-native is the headline, not a buzzword
This isn’t a summit bolting “AI” onto old infrastructure. Tim O’Shea of DeepSig and Nvidia’s Kuntal Chowdhury open Wednesday by walking through how the AI-RAN Alliance’s implementation blueprints could be implemented by the OCUDU codebase – while still staying aligned with 3GPP and O-RAN specs. Earlier in the week, O’Shea also covers progress from the TSC’s AI-RAN and GPU Acceleration working groups. The throughline: intelligent, software-defined RAN isn’t a future roadmap item, it’s what’s being merged right now.
Keynote: AI-RAN and the Future of Open Source 5G/6G – Kuntal Chowdhury, Nvidia & Tim O’Shea, Deepsig, Wednesday October 21, 2026 8:50am – 9:35am EDT
Keynote: TSC Working Groups update – Tim O’Shea, DeepSig, Tuesday October 20, 2026 10:10am – 10:30am EDT
Public-private collaboration is the growth engine
One of the summit’s highly anticipated sessions comes from Dr. Thomas Rondeau of the US Department of War’s FutureG Office, who will unpack how public-private partnerships are accelerating dual-use wireless innovation – technology that has to satisfy both tactical requirements and commercial 5G/6G deployment. It’s a reminder that OCUDU’s momentum isn’t just coming from vendors and operators, but from government-backed initiatives investing in open, vendor-neutral infrastructure.
Keynote: OCUDU for FutureG & Public-Private Open Wireless Innovation – Dr. Thomas Rondeau, US Department of War, OUSD R&D, Tuesday October 20, 2026 10:30am – 11:00am EDT
Getting to carrier-grade means solving testing at scale
Open source RAN won’t matter if it can’t survive real networks. Wednesday’s testing and validation panel – moderated by NSC’s Mari Silby with voices from Viavi, UNH-IOL, and SRS – tackles the unglamorous but essential question of how operators, vendors, test-equipment providers, and researchers coordinate on automated testing and interoperability benchmarks. This is the session for anyone who cares about what it actually takes to move code from a validation lab into a live commercial network.
Keynote Panel: OCUDU Testing and Validation Landscape – Moderator Mari Silbey (NSC), and panelists Ian Wong (Viavi), Lincoln Lavoie (UNH) and Andre Puschman (SRS), Wednesday October 21, 2026 9:35am – 10:10am EDT
The community is the product
Software this ambitious doesn’t scale without contributors. Ranny Haiby moderates a panel on growing and diversifying the OCUDU developer base, digging into onboarding friction, workflow bottlenecks, and how to pull in new talent from both academia and industry. It’s paired with a closing fireside chat from the Linux Foundation’s Arpit Joshipura on the newly established OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation and its long-term vision for a vendor-neutral RAN layer.
Panel Session: The Road Ahead for the OCUDU Community: Moderator Ranny Haiby (The Linux Foundation) and panelists Tracy Van Brakle, Visiting Research Scientist, WINLAB, Rutgers University, Michael Chiaramonte (CNS), John Keeney (Ericsson), Ismael Gomez (SRS) Tuesday October 20, 2026 4:30pm – 5:30pm EDT
Fireside Chat – OCUDU Ecosystem growth – What’s next? – Arpit Joshipura, The Linux Foundation, Brian Daly, AT&T, OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation board chair, Thursday October 22, 2026 9:05am – 9:45am EDT
Why you should be in the room
Between the technical talks, demos, keynotes and panels, the first OCUDU Developer Summit offers a rare compressed view of an entire ecosystem in motion: the standards bodies, the silicon vendors, the operators, the government researchers, and the maintainers writing the actual code, all talking through the same open stack.
Whether you’re evaluating OCUDU for deployment, looking to contribute code, or just trying to understand where open source RAN is headed next, the conversations happening October 20–22 will shape that answer.
Register now to secure your seat at the Boeing Auditorium and be part of where AI-native, open source RAN goes next.