Samsung Electronics is pleased to share that Dr. Charlie Zhang, Senior Vice President of Samsung Research America (SRA), has been reelected as the Vice Chair of the Next G Alliance Full Member Group. He will serve two-year terms beginning Nov. 15, 2024. This election reflects Samsung’s leadership and commitment in the telecommunication research and development, including ongoing 5G commercial deployments and upcoming 6G research and innovations.

Samsung is a founding member of the Next G Alliance along with 37 industry-leading partners. The Next G Alliance is an industry initiative organized by ATIS in 2020 to advance North American mobile technology leadership in 6G and beyond over the next decade. The Next G Alliance will encompass the full lifecycle of research and development, manufacturing, standardization and market readiness. Within the Next G Alliance, six working groups are addressing key areas essential to the future generations of wireless technology: Applications, Green G, National 6G Roadmap, Societal and Economic Needs, Spectrum, and Technology.

Dr. Charlie Zhang is an SVP and head of the Standards and Mobility Innovation Team at SRA, where he leads research, prototyping, and standards for 5G/6G and future multimedia networks. He is also serving as the head of the Samsung Research 6G team, where he leads Samsung’s global 6G strategy and technology innovation efforts.

Also, other recent election results recognize Samsung’s leadership in emerging technologies of AI and communications. AI-RAN Alliance elected Dr. Ardavan Tehrani, Director of Engineering at SRA, as the Vice Chair of Board of Directors and Dr. Athul Prasad, Senior Manager at SRA, as the Vice Chair of the Working Group #3 (AI-on-RAN). The elections reflect Samsung’s leadership and unwavering commitment to advanced R&D, in collaboration with our telecommunication and AI ecosystem partners. In the recent past, Samsung has led the industry by investing heavily on AI, 5G-Advanced and future 6G R&D, and has been actively engaging with the industry, academia and other relevant stakeholders.

Samsung is a founding member of the AI-RAN alliance with the goal of promoting 6G innovations by combining the transformational power of AI and wireless communication technologies. Officially launched at Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona 2024, the AI-RAN Alliance is an organization aimed at revitalizing the convergence of AI and wireless communication and leading technology innovation through cooperation with related companies. The alliance will collaborate on the development of innovative new technologies, as well as the application of these technologies to commercial products in preparation for the upcoming 6G era.

Dr. Ardavan Tehrani is currently serving as Director of Engineering at SRA leading 6G related activities in the U.S. As part of his role, Dr. Tehrani is representing SRA as Vice-chair of the Board of Directors at AI-RAN Alliance and is serving on the Board of US ITU Alliance (USITUA). He is a member of FCC Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and a Co-Chair of its AI/ML Softwarization sub-working group. He is also a member of FCC WRC Advisory Committee (WAC) and serves on the U.S. delegation to WRC and CITEL; and on the Advocacy Advisory Board (AAB) of 5G Americas.

Dr. Athul Prasad is a Senior Manager at SRA where he is part of the Emerging Technologies team. In this role, he contributes to Samsung’s 6G strategy and leads technology partnerships, strategic investments in the area of networking and connectivity.

To learn more about the Next G Alliance, please visit https://nextgalliance.org/.
To learn more about the AI-RAN Alliance, please visit https://ai-ran.org/.