On June 25, during MWC Shanghai 2026, China Mobile, together with the GSMA, Huawei, and other partners, officially launched OpenAN—the world's first open-source project dedicated to telecom Operations & Maintenance (O&M) agent collaboration—within the Linux Foundation Networking (LFN) community.
The launch marks an important milestone in the industry's efforts to build an open, interoperable and AI-native ecosystem for Autonomous Networks.
The launch ceremony brought together leaders from global industry organizations, the open-source community, communications service providers and technology vendors, demonstrating broad industry support for open collaboration in AI-powered telecom networks. Attendees included Dr. Li Huidi, Executive Vice President of China Mobile; Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer of the GSMA; Yang Hin, Vice President of Linux Foundation APAC; and senior executives from participating industry partners.
As Autonomous Networks (AN) Level 4 enters the stage of large-scale commercial deployment, the industry's focus is shifting beyond operational automation toward autonomous decision-making and value creation. Intelligent agents are rapidly becoming a fundamental building block for next-generation network operations, enabling AI to move from isolated applications to collaborative intelligence across networks, operations and services.
To realize this vision, however, the industry must address several common challenges, including trusted AI collaboration, cross-domain and multi-vendor interoperability, large-scale multi-agent orchestration, and the cost efficiency of token-based AI interactions. OpenAN was established to address these challenges through an open, community-driven approach, providing a common technical foundation for telecom AI agent collaboration.
OpenAN introduces innovation across both the protocol and framework layers.
At the protocol layer, the project extends the industry A2A (Agent-to-Agent) protocol with A2A-T (Agent-to-Agent for Telecoms), providing telecom-specific SDKs and key enhancements in reliability, security and support for high-value operational scenarios.
At the framework layer, OpenAN provides a complete open-source framework that supports secure on-premises deployment for communications service providers (CSPs), significantly reducing Internet exposure while enabling enterprise-grade AI deployment. The framework also integrates a standardized solution toolkit led by China Mobile, allowing reusable capabilities to be rapidly assembled and deployed once operational scenarios are defined.
Developed under the Linux Foundation's open governance model, OpenAN welcomes contributions from operators, vendors, AI developers and research organizations worldwide. China Mobile led the development of the project's core registry module and the A2A-T toolkit, both of which have been contributed to the LFN community. Leveraging the Linux Foundation's mature open-source governance and global ecosystem, OpenAN aims to accelerate industry collaboration, expand community participation, and promote large-scale adoption of telecom AI agents across commercial networks worldwide.
In recognition of its technical leadership and contributions to the project, China Mobile serves as the Chair of the OpenAN project.
The launch of OpenAN represents the world's first fully open-source framework dedicated to telecom O&M agent collaboration, marking an important step in bringing multi-agent technologies from research into real-world deployment. More importantly, it establishes an open technical foundation for interoperable AI agents, providing critical support for the evolution of Autonomous Networks toward Level 4 and beyond.
Looking ahead, China Mobile will continue working with global industry organizations, open-source communities, communications service providers, technology vendors and AI partners to expand the OpenAN ecosystem, strengthen its governance and technical capabilities, and encourage broader community participation.
By embracing openness, interoperability and community-driven innovation, OpenAN aims to become a common foundation for telecom AI agents, enabling trusted collaboration across vendors, operators and domains, accelerating the evolution toward AI-native Autonomous Networks, and creating shared value for the global telecommunications industry.