RDK Global Summit 2025: Charting the Future of Connected Experiences

Introduction

The RDK Global Summit 2025, held in Amsterdam on September 16th, brought together a vibrant community of operators, developers, and technology innovators to showcase the evolution and growing impact of RDK as the open-source platform of choice for broadband and video solutions.

With over 200 million devices deployed worldwide and a bold vision to scale to 300 million by 2030, the summit laid out a unified strategy to accelerate innovation, improve customer experience, and strengthen ecosystem collaboration.

Strategic Highlights and Innovations from the RDK Global Summit 2025

• RDK for Broadband: The broadband roadmap revealed a comprehensive plan for innovation and compliance. Enhancements to the Firewall Manager introduced dynamic rule management, telemetry, and attack detection capabilities. Wi-Fi and mesh networking saw significant advancements, including support for Wi-Fi 7 MLO, distributed sensing, EasyMesh 6.0, and early planning for Wi-Fi 8. These developments aim to optimize network performance, improve device interoperability, and support next-generation connectivity standards.
• RDK for Video: A focused session on RDK for Video highlighted its growing capabilities in technology, architecture, and device innovation. Featuring insights from major global operators, the session concluded with a look at the upcoming roadmap, emphasizing performance, scalability, and user experience enhancements.
• RDK 2030-Post card from the future: Five strategic priorities were shown to expand RDK's reach to 300 million devices by 2030. These include reducing fragmentation through open-source development with minimal customization, fostering community-driven innovation via collaborative groups and shared roadmaps, and accelerating migration from legacy systems to boost efficiency and quality. The roadmap also emphasizes the use of RDK-ready silicon to cut development time and costs, and the integration of AI and edge intelligence to power smarter, self-healing devices.
• AI, the Cornerstone of the Next-Gen RDK Experience: AI took center stage at the summit, with use cases like diagnostics, self-healing networks, and eco-mode features showcasing its impact. Integrating AI into RDK is set to speed up development and boost efficiency. The discussion also covered containerization and lifecycle management as ways to deploy apps independently, enabling greater flexibility and modularity.
• Simplifying App Delivery with Firebolt Connect: The summit showcased how the Firebolt Connect Program is redefining video app deployment. By leveraging reusable components and strategic frameworks, operators can now launch high-engagement services faster, turning delivery challenges into competitive advantages.
• Toolkit for RDK-B Apps: A session on broadband apps demonstrated how operators are leveraging RDK-B to deploy advanced network agents quickly. This evolving framework is unlocking AI-driven customer value and aligning more closely with community needs.
• Standards That Scale: A dedicated panel discussed collaborative efforts shaping the future of Wi-Fi, including advancements in EasyMesh and early developments around Wi-Fi 8, key to building interoperable and scalable broadband networks.

Tata Elxsi at the RDK Global Summit 2025

As a long-standing RTAB member and proud sponsor of the summit, Tata Elxsi showcased its continued commitment to RDK through innovative solutions and deep domain expertise.

Key Showcases:

• RDK Device Management Portal: A scalable, multi-tenant SaaS platform that simplifies the entire device lifecycle, from release readiness to deployment, monitoring, triage, and analytics. It’s built to reduce MTTR, improve service reliability, and integrate seamlessly with operator DevOps environments.
• OpenWRT to RDK-B Migration Accelerator: A robust solution for over-the-air migration of broadband gateways from OpenWRT to RDK-B, while preserving user settings to ensure a seamless transition for consumers.

Nitin Pai, CMO & Chief Strategy Officer at Tata Elxsi, was also part of visionary panel on the topic “Edge AI Unleashed: Revolutionary Solutions at the Speed of Demand”. The discussion explored how Edge AI is reshaping customer experiences, enabling ultra-low latency, privacy-focused, and hyper-personalized services directly at the edge.