NTIA Gathers AI Ideas for Wireless Tech Boost
Published Date: 3/11/2026
Notice
Summary
The NTIA is hosting a hybrid listening session on March 23, 2026, to talk about progress and gather ideas for the Innovation Fund, which helps boost U.S. leadership in 5G and future wireless tech. This affects companies and innovators in wireless tech by shaping future funding and support. It’s a chance to influence how money is spent to build better, open, and competitive wireless networks.
Analyzed Economic Effects
4 provisions identified: 4 benefits, 0 costs, 0 mixed.
Grants to support open interoperable RAN tech
The Innovation Fund provides grant support for promoting and deploying technology (software, hardware, microprocessing) that enhances competitiveness in 5G and successor wireless supply chains that use open and interoperable interface radio access networks. Companies that develop or deploy open-interface RAN technologies are explicitly within the Fund's statutory purposes.
Funding to accelerate open-standards deployments
The Fund supports accelerating commercial deployments of open-interface, standards-based interoperable equipment (including equipment developed pursuant to standards by organizations such as the O-RAN Alliance, the Telecom Infra Project, 3GPP, and the Open-RAN Software Community). This targets companies working on standards-based, multi-vendor equipment.
Grants for interoperability, security, and virtualization
The Innovation Fund may support activities that manage integration of multi-vendor networks; identify objective criteria to define equipment as compliant with open standards; promote security features that enhance integrity and availability; and deploy network function virtualization to enable multi-vendor interoperability and a more diverse vendor market.
Industry chance to shape Innovation Fund
NTIA is holding a hybrid public listening session on March 23, 2026, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Eastern to gather industry input that will help inform a future Innovation Fund funding opportunity. The meeting is hybrid (Microsoft Teams and in-person at The MITRE Corporation in McLean, VA), open to the public on a first-come, first-serve basis, and provides companies and innovators a direct opportunity to influence how future grant money may be spent.
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