Khalifa University built AI model tops global telco leaderboard
TelecomGPT-R1 beats closed-source rivals, scores 89.6% on GSMA test
#UAE #telecom - Abu Dhabi research university Khalifa University of Science and Technology (KU) has topped the GSMA Open Telco Leaderboard with its new TelecomGPT-R1 open 27 billion parameter reasoning model. The model scores 89.6 percent on average, the highest of any model tested on the leaderboard, beating both open and closed-source systems built by major technology companies. Built by the university’s Digital Future Institute, the model was launched today at Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2026 and released openly under an Apache-2.0 licence, allowing operators and researchers to inspect and adapt it freely.
SO WHAT? - A university-built, openly licensed model has outperformed proprietary systems from major technology companies on a the GSMA’s leaderboard for telecom AI models. Using a cost-efficient post-training recipe, Khalifa University used smart optimisation to achieve strong telecom reasoning performance, without relying on a massive proprietary training budget. The effort to lower the computing cost, whilst building a superior reasoning model is all the more relevant, given that researchers are currently developing the new 6G standard that is sure to rely heavily on AI models.
KEY POINTS:
Khalifa University has announced TelecomGPT-R1, an open 27B reasoning model for telecom AI. The new model scores an average of 89.6% on the GSMA Open Telco Leaderboard, the highest result recorded by any model, open or closed, general-purpose or telecom-specific, since the benchmark launched.
The model was developed by the university’s Digital Future Institute (DFI) and launched on 22 June at Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2026, one of the telecom industry’s largest annual gatherings.
TelecomGPT-R1 is released openly under an Apache-2.0 licence, meaning telecom operators, equipment vendors and academic researchers can inspect, test and adapt the model for their own networks at no licensing cost.
The system is designed to handle reading 3GPP and O-RAN technical specifications, interpreting RAN logs and drive-test data, answering telecom knowledge questions, solving RF and network modelling problems, and reasoning through fault-analysis workflows.
The model builds on a strategic partnership announced in November 2025 between GSMA Foundry, the innovation arm of the GSMA, and Khalifa University’s 6G Research Centre, aimed at producing open telecom AI assets and benchmarking tools.
Earlier outputs from the partnership included an Open Telco Knowledge Graph built around 3GPP documentation and an earlier large language model hosted on AI infrastructure provider LightOn.
Researchers on the TelecomGPT-R1 project include: Merouane Debbah, Bohao Wang, Hang ZOU, Yu Tian, PhD, Chenwei Wu, Haoyu Li, Lina Bariah at Khalifa University plus Chongwen Huang, Yongliang Shen, and Zhang Zhaoyang from Zhejiang University.
ZOOM OUT - Khalifa University’s 6G Research Centre built the first version in mid-2024, working jointly with Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute. That early model already beat GPT-4, Llama-3 and Mistral on telecom-specific benchmarks, including mathematical modelling tasks, and helped establish the evaluation frameworks the sector had been missing. GSMA Foundry and Khalifa University then announced a second version of TelecomGPT in November 2025 at MWC Doha, pairing the model with an Open Telco Knowledge Graph built around 3GPP documentation. The TelecomGPT-R1’s leaderboard win marks the third major step in that two-year build-up, not a standalone project.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Source: Khalifa University, GSMA, MEAIN
LINKS
TelecomGPR-R1 (Hugging Face)
Open Telco Leaderboard (Hugging Face)
Read more about telecom GPT and related research:
GSMA, KU to develop new TelecomGPT version (Middle East AI News)
GSMA releases telecom AI benchmarks ahead of MCW 2025 (Middle East AI News)
New leaderboard to support development of telecom LLMs (Middle East AI News)
Testing phase begins for TelecomGPT (Middle East AI News)
Abu Dhabi researchers create first-of-its-kind telecom LLM (Middle East AI News)