The Nephio project, launched in 2022, has solidified its position as a leader in cloud-native automation and multi-cloud network management. With contributions from over 70 organizations and growing community engagement, Nephio achieved significant milestones in 2024, as detailed in the LF Networking 2024 Annual Report.
Nephio’s 2024 Milestones
In 2024, Nephio continued its progress across technology, community growth, and adoption, advancing network automation with new capabilities, expanded use cases, and broader industry reach.
Key Highlights
- Use Cases & Verticals: Nephio enabled flexible RAN, Core, and Transport configurations, offering a unified, vendor-neutral network management approach across industries.
- Evolving Technologies: Enhanced Kubernetes-native Resource Management (KRM), SDK extensibility, and AI-driven automation improved operational efficiency and adaptability.
- Synergies with Other Projects: Collaborations with O-RAN, ETSI, TMForum, Project Sylva, CAMARA, and LF AI & Data fostered a robust ecosystem supporting open-source network automation.
- Community Growth & Adoption: Positive market feedback and lighthouse deployments accelerated Nephio’s adoption, solidifying its leadership in cloud-native automation.
- Expanding Beyond Telecom: The Nephio community expanded its focus to automation needs in retail, enterprise, finance, government, and other sectors, enabling large-scale edge deployments and operational improvements.
Roadmap
- Looking ahead, Nephio R4, R5 will focus on production readiness with enhanced multi-cloud support, strengthened security, lifecycle management for network functions, O-RAN integrations, support for various GitOps technologies, NB API integration, user experience upgrades.
- With the progress of GenAI efforts within the Nephio there is a growing interest in the community to solve many tedious, manual automation templates generation and configuration management through GenAI. The community will publish white papers soon. There are also evolving opportunities to create synergies with LFN broader initiatives to support GenAI vision for nephio solving data and analytics problems for improving customer experience across both telcos and enterprises.
Nephio’s 2024 accomplishments mark major progress in network infrastructure automation, addressing both telecom and cross-industry needs. With R4 on the horizon and advancements in O-RAN, Kubernetesbased automation, and GenAI integration, Nephio is positioned to lead cloud-native automation for years to come. Its community will continue driving adoption and innovation, solidifying Nephio as a key platform for automation across industries.
Learn More in the Full Report
The LF Networking 2024 Annual Report explores Nephio’s achievements in detail and provides insights into its future vision for network automation and multi-cloud management. Read the full report here.
