Light Source Communications Secures Deal with Major Global Hyperscaler for Fiber Network in Phoenix Metro Area

Light Source Communications is building a 140-mile fiber middle-mile network in the Phoenix, AZ metro area, covering nine cities: Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Chandler, Gilbert, Queen Creek, Avondale, Coronado and Cashion. The company already has a major hyperscaler as the first anchor tenant.

There are currently 70 existing and planned data centers in the area that Light Source will serve. As one might expect, the increase in data centers stems from the boom in artificial intelligence (AI).

The network will include a big ring, which will be divided into three separate rings. In total, Light Source will be deploying 140 miles of fiber. The company has partnered with engineering and construction provider Future Infrastructure LLC, a division of Primoris Services Corp., to make it happen.

“I would say that AI happens to be blowing up our industry, as you know. It’s really in response to the amount of data that AI is demanding,” said Debra Freitas [1.], CEO of Light Source Communications (LSC).

Note 1. Debra Freitas has led LSC since co-founding in 2014. Owned and operated network with global OTT as a customer. She developed key customer relationships, secured funding for growth. Currently sits on the Executive Board of Incompas.

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Light Source plans for the entire 140-mile route to be underground. It’s currently working with the city councils and permitting departments of the nine cities as it goes through its engineering and permit approval processes. Freitas said the company expects to receive approvals from all the city councils and to begin construction in the third quarter of this year, concluding by the end of 2025.

Primoris delivers a range of specialty construction services to the utility, energy, and renewables markets throughout the United States and Canada. Its communications business is a leading provider of critical infrastructure solutions, including program management, engineering, fabrication, replacement, and maintenance. With over 12,700 employees, Primoris had revenue of $5.7 billion in 2023.

“We’re proud to partner with Light Source Communications on this impactful project, which will exceed the growing demands for high-capacity, reliable connectivity in the Phoenix area,” said Scott Comley, president of Primoris’ communications business. “Our commitment to innovation and excellence is well-aligned with Light Source’s cutting-edge solutions and we look forward to delivering with quality and safety at the forefront.”

Light Source is a carrier neutral, owner-operator of networks serving enterprises throughout the U.S. In addition to Phoenix, several new dark fiber routes are in development in major markets throughout the Central and Western United States. For more information about Light Source Communications, go to lightsourcecom.net.

The city councils in the Phoenix metro area have been pretty busy with fiber-build applications the past couple of years because the area is also a hotbed for companies building fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) networks. In 2022 the Mesa City Council approved four different providers to build fiber networks. AT&T and BlackRock have said their joint venture would also start deploying fiber in Mesa.

Light Source is focusing on middle-mile, rather than FTTP because that’s where the demand is, according to Freitas. “Our route is a unique route, meaning there are no other providers where we’re going. We have a demand for the route we’re putting in,” she noted.

The company says it already has “a major, global hyperscaler” anchor tenant, but it won’t divulge who that tenant is. Its network will also touch Arizona State University at Tempe and the University of Arizona.

Light Source doesn’t light any of the fiber it deploys. Rather, it is carrier neutral and sells the dark fiber to customers who light it themselves and who may resell it to their own customers.

Light Source began operations in 2014 and is backed by private equity. It did not receive any federal grants for the new middle-mile network in Arizona.

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Bill Long, Zayo’s chief product officer, told Fierce Telecom recently that data centers are preparing for an onslaught of demand for more compute power, which will be needed to handle AI workloads and train new AI models.

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About Light Source Communications:

Light Source Communications (LSC) is a carrier neutral, customer agnostic provider of secure, scalable, reliable connectivity on a state-of-the-art dark fiber network. The immense amounts of data businesses require to compete in today’s global market requires access to an enhanced fiber infrastructure that allows them to control their data. With over 120 years of telecom experience, LSC offers an owner-operated network for U.S. businesses to succeed here and abroad. LSC is uniquely positioned and is highly qualified to build the next generation of dark fiber routes across North America, providing the key connections for business today and tomorrow.

References:

https://www.lightsourcecom.net/services/

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/light-source-communications-secures-deal-with-major-global-hyperscaler-to-bring-dark-fiber-route-to-phoenix-metro-area-302087385.html

https://www.fiercetelecom.com/ai/ai-demand-spurs-light-source-build-middle-mile-network-phoenix

Proposed solutions to high energy consumption of Generative AI LLMs: optimized hardware, new algorithms, green data centers

AI sparks huge increase in U.S. energy consumption and is straining the power grid; transmission/distribution as a major problem

AI Frenzy Backgrounder; Review of AI Products and Services from Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta; Conclusions

 

 

AI Frenzy Backgrounder; Review of AI Products and Services from Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta; Conclusions

Backgrounder:

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues both to astound and confound.  AI finds patterns in data and then uses a technique called “reinforcement learning from human feedback.” Humans help train and fine-tune large language models (LLMs). Some humans, like “ethics & compliance” folks, have a heavier hand than others in tuning models to their liking.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (generative AI) is a type of AI that can create new content and ideas, including conversations, stories, images, videos, and music. AI technologies attempt to mimic human intelligence in nontraditional computing tasks like image recognition, natural language processing (NLP), and translation. Generative AI is the next step in artificial intelligence. You can train it to learn human language, programming languages, art, chemistry, biology, or any complex subject matter. It reuses training data to solve new problems. For example, it can learn English vocabulary and create a poem from the words it processes. Your organization can use generative AI for various purposes, like chatbots, media creation, and product development and design.

Review of Leading AI Company Products and Services:

1.  AI poster child Nvidia’s (NVDA) market cap is about $2.3 trillion, due mainly to momentum-obsessed investors who have driven up the stock price. Nvidia currently enjoys 75% gross profit margins and has an estimated 80% share of the Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) chip market.  Microsoft and Facebook are reportedly Nvidia‘s biggest customers, buying its GPUs last year in a frenzy.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang talks of computing going from retrieval to generative, which investors believe will require a long-run overhaul of data centers to handle AI. All true, but a similar premise about an overhaul also was true for Cisco in 1999.

During the dot-com explosion in the late 1990s, investors believed a long-run rebuild of telecom infrastructure was imminent. Worldcom executives claimed that internet traffic doubled every 100 days, or about 3.5 months. The thinking at that time was that the whole internet would run on Cisco routers at 50% gross margins.

Cisco’s valuation at its peak of the “Dot.com” mania was at 33x sales. CSCO investors lost 85% of their money when the stock price troughed in October 2002. Over the next 16 years, as investors waited to break even, the company grew revenues by 172% and earnings per share by a staggering 681%. Over the last 24 years, CSCO buy and hold investors earned only 0.67% per year!

 

2. Microsoft is now a cloud computing/data-center company, more utility than innovator.  Microsoft invested $13 billion in OpenAI  for just under 50% of the company to help develop and roll out ChatGPT. But much of that was funny money — investment not in cash but in credits for Microsoft‘s Azure data centers.  Microsoft leveraged those investments into super powering its own search engine, Bing, with generative AI which is now called “Copilot.”  Microsoft  spends a tremendous amount of  money on Nvidia H100 processors to speed up its AI calculations. It also has designed its own AI chips.

3. Amazon masquerades as an online retailer, but is actually the world’s largest cloud computing/data-center company.  The company offers several generative AI products and services which include:

  • Amazon CodeWhisperer, an AI-powered coding companion.
  • Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service that makes foundational models (FMs) from AI21 Labs, Anthropic, and Stability AI, along with Amazon’s own family of FMs, Amazon Titan, accessible via an API.
  • A generative AI tool for sellers to help them generate copy for product titles and listings.
  • Generative AI capabilities that simplify how Amazon sellers create more thorough and captivating product descriptions, titles, and listing details.

Amazon CEO Jassy recently said the the company’s generative AI services have the potential to generate tens of billions of dollars over the next few years. CFO Brian Olsavsky told analysts that interest in Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) generative AI products, such as Amazon Q and AI chatbot for businesses, had accelerated during the quarter. In September 2023, Amazon said it plans to invest up to $4 billion in startup chatbot-maker Anthropic to take on its AI based cloud rivals (i.e. Microsoft and Google).  Its security teams are currently using generative AI to increase productivity

4. Google, with 190,000 employees, controls 90% of search. Google‘s recent launch of its new Gemini AI tools was a disaster, producing images of the U.S. Founding Fathers and Nazi soldiers as people of color. When asked if Elon Musk or Adolf Hitler had a more negative effect on society, Gemini responded that it was “difficult to say.” Google pulled the product over “inaccuracies.”  Yet Google is still promoting its AI product: “Gemini, a multimodal model from Google DeepMind, is capable of understanding virtually any input, combining different types of information, and generating almost any output.”

5. Facebook/Meta controls social media but has lost $42 billion investing in the still-nascent metaverse. Meta is rolling out three AI features for advertisers: background generation, image cropping and copy variation. Meta also unveiled a generative AI system called Make-A-Scene that allows artists to create scenes from text prompts . Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth said the company aims to use generative AI to help companies reach different audiences with tailored ads.

Conclusions:

Voracious demand has outpaced production and spurred competitors to develop rival chips. The ability to secure GPUs governs how quickly companies can develop new artificial-intelligence systems. Tech CEOs are under pressure to invest in AI, or risk investors thinking their company is falling behind the competition.

As we noted in a recent IEEE Techblog post, researchers in South Korea have developed the world’s first AI semiconductor chip that operates at ultra-high speeds with minimal power consumption for processing large language models (LLMs), based on principles that mimic the structure and function of the human brain. The research team was from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

While it’s impossible to predict how fast additional fabricating capacity comes on line,  there certainly will be many more AI chips from cloud giants and merchant semiconductor companies like AMD and Intel.  Fat profit margins Nvidia is now enjoying will surely attract many competitors.

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References:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-use-the-new-bing-and-how-its-different-from-chatgpt/

https://cloud.google.com/ai/generative-ai

https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/generative-ai/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-is-going-super-aggressive-on-generative-ai-7681587f

https://ai.meta.com/

Meta wants to use generative AI to create ads

Curmudgeon: 2024 AI Fueled Stock Market Bubble vs 1999 Internet Mania? (03/11)

https://www.investopedia.com/amazon-stock-jumps-amid-retail-business-strength-and-cloud-ai-product-growth-key-price-levels-to-watch-8557842

Korea’s KAIST develops next-gen ultra-low power Gen AI LLM accelerator

Telco and IT vendors pursue AI integrated cloud native solutions, while Nokia sells point products

MTN Consulting: Generative AI hype grips telecom industry; telco CAPEX decreases while vendor revenue plummets

Proposed solutions to high energy consumption of Generative AI LLMs: optimized hardware, new algorithms, green data centers

Amdocs and NVIDIA to Accelerate Adoption of Generative AI for $1.7 Trillion Telecom Industry

Cloud Service Providers struggle with Generative AI; Users face vendor lock-in; “The hype is here, the revenue is not”

Global Telco AI Alliance to progress generative AI for telcos

Bain & Co, McKinsey & Co, AWS suggest how telcos can use and adapt Generative AI

Generative AI Unicorns Rule the Startup Roost; OpenAI in the Spotlight

Generative AI in telecom; ChatGPT as a manager? ChatGPT vs Google Search

Generative AI could put telecom jobs in jeopardy; compelling AI in telecom use cases

Impact of Generative AI on Jobs and Workers

 

SK Telecom, DOCOMO, NTT and Nokia develop 6G AI-native air interface

SK Telecom, DOCOMO, NTT and Nokia today announced they have partnered to develop the 6G AI-native air interface (AI-AI), a critical next-generation technology that could greatly boost network performance while increasing energy efficiency. The four companies will show video demonstration of an AI-AI proof of concept at SKT’s booth at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Feb. 26-29.

This new 6G collaboration builds on an existing relationship between DOCOMO, NTT and Nokia targeted at 6G innovation. With the addition of SKT, the four companies will be able to expand the scope and scale of 6G AI-AI testing and validation as well as explore a broader range of business use cases for the technology.

The collaboration is developing future proof-of-concept 6G AI-AI systems, which will then be put to the test using selected use cases and real environmental scenarios. These over-the-air validation tests will be conducted both in the lab and outdoors to best simulate real network results. SKT, NTT, DOCOMO and Nokia will cooperate on improving AI model performance by utilizing data generated from real networks or through simulation. This will be instrumental in developing AI training models for a best-in-industry AI-AI solution.

By working together, SKT, DOCOMO, NTT and Nokia will be able to combine their research efforts and bring their core areas of expertise to the table. SKT, DOCOMO and NTT are recognized worldwide for their successful adoption of every generation of networking and their ability to create new business value from advanced technologies, while Nokia’s industrial research arm, Nokia Bell Labs, is a leader in 6G innovation.

Photo Courtesy of SK Telecom

Yu Takki, Vice President and Head of Infra Tech at SKT, said: “ This milestone represents a significant step forward in collaborative efforts towards the development of 6G core technology involving technology leaders from Korea, Japan, Europe and the United States. SKT will maintain its momentum in its R&D efforts of applying AI technology to network infrastructure as we move forward to become a global AI company.”

Takaaki Sato, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at DOCOMO said: “DOCOMO and NTT are delighted to advance this project with Nokia, a global vendor leading the world, and SKT, a mobile operator co-leading Asia. Through this collaboration, we will take the lead in innovative technology development and standardization of 6G, and focus on building a global ecosystem that includes future industries and technologies.”

Peter Vetter, President of Bell Labs Core Research at Nokia, said: “For Nokia to create a world-class 6G system, it’s critical we get input from the service providers that will one day deploy 6G. SKT, NTT and DOCOMO are among the most innovative service providers in the world, which gives us the perfect partners to design the networks of the future.”

Editor’s Note:  This 6G AI initiative has NOT yet been submitted to ITU-R WP 5D for inclusion in any IMT 2030 related draft document.

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About SK Telecom:

SK Telecom has been leading the growth of the mobile industry since 1984. Now, it is taking customer experience to new heights by extending beyond connectivity. By placing AI at the core of its business, SK Telecom is rapidly transforming into an AI company with a strong global presence. It is focusing on driving innovations in areas of AI Infrastructure, AI Transformation (AIX) and AI Service to deliver greater value for industry, society, and life.

References:

https://www.sktelecom.com/en/press/press_detail.do?idx=1602&currentPage=1&type=&keyword=

https://www.kedglobal.com/tech,-media-telecom/newsView/ked202402220013

https://www.sktelecom.com/en/press/press_detail.do?idx=1601&currentPage=1&type=&keyword=

SK Telecom, Intel develop low-latency technology for 6G core network

SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom to Jointly Develop Telco-specific Large Language Models (LLMs)

 

China backed Volt Typhoon has “pre-positioned” malware to disrupt U.S. critical infrastructure networks “on a scale greater than ever before”

On Sunday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Beijing’s efforts to covertly plant offensive malware inside U.S. critical infrastructure networks [1.] is now at “a scale greater than we’d seen before,” an issue he has deemed a defining national security threat.  He said that China backed Volt Typhoon was pre-positioning malware that could be triggered at any moment to disrupt U.S. critical infrastructure.  “It’s the tip of the iceberg…it’s one of many such efforts by the Chinese,” he said on the sidelines of the security conference.

Wray had earlier told conference delegates, that China was increasingly inserting “offensive weapons within our critical infrastructure poised to attack whenever Beijing decides the time is right.”  The FBI chief said the U.S. is particularly focused on the threat of pre-positioning, which some European officials have described as the cyber equivalent of pointing a ballistic missile at critical infrastructure.  “Those attacks are now being amplified by artificial intelligence tools.  The word ‘force multiplier’ is not really enough,” Wray added.

Note 1. The FBI Director declined to elaborate on what other critical infrastructure had been targeted, stressing that the Bureau had “a lot of work under way.”

Image Credits: imaginima / Getty Images

Machine learning translation has helped Chinese security operatives to more plausibly recruit assets, steal secrets and rapidly process more of the information they are collecting, the Wray said.   “They already have built economic espionage and theft of personal and corporate data as a kind of a bedrock of their economic strategy and are eagerly pursuing AI advancements to try to accelerate that process,” Wray added.

FBI Director Christopher Wray PHOTO: KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGES

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Western intelligence officials say China’s scale and sophistication of cyberattacks has accelerated over the past decade. Officials have grown particularly alarmed at Beijing’s interest in infiltrating U.S. critical infrastructure networks, planting malware inside U.S. computer systems responsible for everything from safe drinking water to aviation traffic so it could detonate, at a moment’s notice, damaging cyberattacks during a conflict.

In California, Wray met with counterparts from the Five Eyes intelligence community—which encompasses the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.K.—to share respective strategies for cyber defense.  He has also traveled to Malaysia and India to discuss China’s hacking campaign with authorities in both countries.

“I am seeing more from Europe,” he said. “We’re laser focused on this as a real threat and we’re working with a lot of partners to try to identify it, anticipate it and disrupt it.”

The Netherlands’ spy agencies said earlier this month that Chinese hackers had used malware to gain access to a Dutch military network last year. The agency, considered to have one of Europe’s top cyber capabilities, said it made the rare disclosure to show the scale of the threat and reduce the stigma of being targeted so allied governments can better pool knowledge.

A report released this month by agencies including the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency and the National Security Agency said Volt Typhoon hackers had maintained access in some U.S. networks for five or more years, and while it targeted only U.S. infrastructure directly, the infiltration was likely to have affected “Five Eyes” allies.

Author’s Note:

This author is very disappointed that the U.S.. Five Eyes and European agencies chartered with combating cybercrime  have done so little to prevent cyber attacks on “critical infrastructure,” especially since Volt Typhoon has been doing so for at least five years according to the referenced January 2024 report.
Recall all the rah-rah talk 11 or 12 years ago about “Smart Grid,” which was supposed to make U.S. electrical grid infrastructure super-secure, resilient, and able to quickly recover from power failures and cyber attacks! Here we are in 2024, where none of that has happened, despite many IEEE, IEC, NTIA, and ETSI Smart Grid initiatives, specifications, and standards.  Hence, our critical infrastructure is at risk of cyber attacks by Volt Typhoon and other bad actors.
There’s even talk of US electric utilities buying and installing China made power transformers that have a back door as per this article.

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Volt Typhoonthe China-sponsored hacking group, has been targeting U.S. critical infrastructure, including satellite and emergency management services and electric utilities, according to a new report from the industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos.  That report outlines how the notorious hacking group is positioning themselves to have disruptive or destructive impacts on critical infrastructure in the U.S.

Robert M. Lee, founder and CEO of Dragos, warned during a media briefing that Volt Typhoon is not an opportunistic group, but is instead targeting specific sites that assist U.S. adversaries “trying to hurt or cripple U.S. infrastructure.  It’s hitting the specific electric and satellite communication providers that would be important for disrupting major portions of the U.S. electric infrastructure,” Lee added.

The report comes shortly after the National Security Agency, FBI, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, revealed that Volt Typhoon has been in some critical infrastructure networks for at least five years. That alert warned of Volt Typhoon operations that targeted the aviation, railways, mass transit, highway, maritime, pipeline, and water and sewage sectors.

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The NSA, CISA and FBI said in a joint advisory report that Volt Typhoon has been burrowing into the networks of aviation, rail, mass transit, highway, maritime, pipeline, water and sewage organizations — none of which were named — in a bid to pre-position themselves for destructive cyberattacks, published on February 7th.  The release of the advisory, which was co-signed by cybersecurity agencies in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, comes a week after a similar warning from FBI Director Christopher Wray. Speaking during a U.S. House of Representatives committee hearing on cyber threats posed by China, Wray described Volt Typhoon as “the defining threat of our generation” and said the group’s aim is to “disrupt our military’s ability to mobilize” in the early stages of an anticipated conflict over Taiwan, which China claims as its territory.

According to Wednesday’s technical advisory, Volt Typhoon has been exploiting vulnerabilities in routers, firewalls and VPNs to gain initial access to critical infrastructure across the country. The China-backed hackers typically leveraged stolen administrator credentials to maintain access to these systems, according to the advisory, and in some cases, they have maintained access for “at least five years.”

This access enabled the state-backed hackers to carry out potential disruptions such as “manipulating heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in server rooms or disrupting critical energy and water controls, leading to significant infrastructure failures,” the advisory warned. In some cases, Volt Typhoon hackers had the capability to access camera surveillance systems at critical infrastructure facilities — though it’s not clear if they did.

Volt Typhoon also used living-off-the-land techniques, whereby attackers use legitimate tools and features already present in the target system, to maintain long-term, undiscovered persistence. The hackers also conducted “extensive pre-compromise reconnaissance” in a bid to avoid detection. “For example, in some instances, Volt Typhoon actors may have abstained from using compromised credentials outside of normal working hours to avoid triggering security alerts on abnormal account activities,” the advisory said.

Earlier this year, the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice announced that they had disrupted the “KV Botnet” run by Volt Typhoon that had compromised hundreds of U.S.-based routers for small businesses and home offices. The FBI said it was able to remove the malware from the hijacked routers and sever their connection to the Chinese state-sponsored hackers.

According to a May 2023 report published by Microsoft, Volt Typhoon has been targeting and breaching U.S. critical infrastructure since at least mid-2021.

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References:

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-disables-chinese-hacking-operation-that-targeted-critical-infrastructure-184bb407

Volt Typhoon targeted emergency management services, per report

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/fbi-director-says-china-cyberattacks-on-u-s-infrastructure-now-at-unprecedented-scale-c8de5983

China-backed Volt Typhoon hackers have lurked inside US critical infrastructure for ‘at least five years’

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wave-of-stealthy-china-cyberattacks-hits-u-s-private-networks-google-says-2f98eaed

US disrupts China-backed hacking operation amid warning of threat to American infrastructure

https://www.controlglobal.com/home/blog/11293192/information-technology

“SK Wonderland at CES 2024;” SK Group Chairman: AI-led revolution poses challenges to companies

On Tuesday at CES 2024, SK Group [1.] displayed world-leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) and carbon reduction technologies under an amusement park concept called “SK Wonderland.”   It provided CES attendees a view of a world that uses the latest AI and clean technologies from SK companies and their business partners to a create a smarter, greener world. Highlights of the booth included:

  • Magic Carpet Ride in a flying vehicle embedded with an AI processor that helps it navigate dense, urban areas – reducing pollution, congestion and commuting frustrations
  • AI Fortune Teller powered by next-generation memory technologies that can help computers analyze and learn from massive amounts of data to predict the future
  • Dancing Car that’s fully electric, able to recharge in 20 minutes or less and built to travel hundreds of miles between charges
  • Clean Energy Train that’s capable of being powered by hydrogen, whose only emission is water
  • Rainbow Tube that shows how plastics are finding a new life through a technology that turns waste into fuel

Note 1. SK Group is South Korea’s second-largest conglomerate, with Samsung at number one.

SK’s CES 2024 displays include participation from seven SK companies — SK Inc., SK Innovation, SK Hynix, SK Telecom, SK E&S, SK Ecoplant and SKC. While the displays are futuristic, they’re based on technologies that SK companies and their global partners have already developed and are bringing to market.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said that companies are facing challenges in navigating the transformative era led by artificial intelligence (AI) due to its unpredictable impact and speed.  He said AI technology and devices with AI are the talk of the town at this year’s annual trade show and companies are showcasing their AI innovations achieved through early investment.

“We are on the starting line of the new era, and no one can predict the impact and speed of the AI revolution across the industries,” Chey told Korean reporters after touring corporate booths on the opening day of CES 2024 at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas.  Reflecting on the rapid evolution of AI technologies, he highlighted the breakthrough made by ChatGPT, a language model launched about a year ago, which has significantly influenced how AI is perceived and utilized globally. “Until ChatGPT, no one has thought of how AI would change the world. ChatGPT made a breakthrough, and everybody is trying to ride on the wave.”

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won speaks during a brief meeting with Korean media on the sidelines of CES 2024 at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas on Jan. 9, 2024

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SK Hynix Inc., SK Group’s chipmaking unit, is one of the prominent companies at CES 2024, boasting its high-performance AI chips like high bandwidth memory (HBM). The latest addition is the HBM3E chips, recognized as the world’s best-performing memory product. Mass production of HBM3E is scheduled to begin in the first half of 2024.

SK Telecom Co. is also working on AI, having Sapeon, an AI chip startup under its wing. Chey stressed the importance of integrating AI services and solutions across SK Group’s diverse business sectors, ranging from energy to telecommunications and semiconductors. “It’s crucial for each company to collaborate and present a unified package or solution rather than developing them separately,” Chey said. “But I don’t think it is necessary to set up a new unit for that. I think we should come up with an integrated channel for customers.”

SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom are jointly developing Large Language Models for generative AI to be used by telecom network providers.

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References:

https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240110001900320#

https://eng.sk.com/news/ces-2024-sk-to-showcase-world-class-carbon-reduction-and-ai-technologies

SK Telecom inspects cell towers for safety using drones and AI

SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom to Jointly Develop Telco-specific Large Language Models (LLMs)

SK Telecom and Thales Trial Post-quantum Cryptography to Enhance Users’ Protection on 5G SA Network

MTN Consulting: Generative AI hype grips telecom industry; telco CAPEX decreases while vendor revenue plummets

Ever since Generative (Gen) AI burst into the mainstream through public-facing platforms (e.g. ChatGPT) late last year, its promising capabilities have caught the attention of many. Not surprisingly, telecom industry execs are among the curious observers wanting to try Gen AI even as it continues to evolve at a rapid pace.

MTN Consulting says the telecom industry’s bond with AI is not new though. Many telcos have deployed conventional AI tools and applications in the past several years, but Gen AI presents opportunities for telcos to deliver significant incremental value over existing AI. A few large telcos have kickstarted their quest for Gen AI by focusing on “localization.” Through localization of processes using Gen AI, telcos vow to eliminate language barriers and improve customer engagement in their respective operating markets, especially where English as a spoken language is not dominant.

Telcos can harness the power of Gen AI across a wide range of different functions, but the two vital telco domains likely to witness transformative potential of Gen AI are networks and customer service. Both these domains are crucial: network demands are rising at an unprecedented pace with increased complexity, and delivering differentiated customer experiences remains an unrealized ambition for telcos.

Several Gen AI use cases are emerging within these two telco domains to address these challenges. In the network domain, these include topology optimization, network capacity planning, and predictive maintenance, for example. In the customer support domain, they include localized virtual assistants, personalized support, and contact center documentation.

Most of the use cases leveraging Gen AI applications involve dealing with sensitive data, be it network-related or customer-related. This will have major implications from the regulatory point of view, and regulatory concerns will constrain telcos’ Gen AI adoption and deployment strategies. The big challenge is the mosaic of complex and strict regulations prevalent in different markets that telcos will have to understand and adhere to when implementing Gen AI use cases in such markets. This is an area where third-party vendors will try to cash in by offering Gen AI solutions that are compliant with regulations in the respective markets.

Vendors will also play a key role for small- and medium-sized telcos in Gen AI implementation, by eliminating constraints due to the lack of technical expertise and HW/SW resources, skilled manpower, along with opex costs burden. Key vendors to watch out for in the Gen AI space are webscale providers who possess the ideal combination of providing cloud computing resources required to train large language models (LLM) coupled with their Gen AI expertise offered through pre-trained models.

Other key points from MTN Consulting on Gen AI in the telecom industry:

  • Network operations and customer support will be key transformative areas.
  • Telco workforce will become leaner but smarter in the Gen AI era.
  • Strict regulations will be a major barrier for telcos.
  • Vendors key to Gen AI integration; webscale providers set for more telco gains.
  • Lock-in risks and rising software costs are key considerations in choosing vendors.

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Separately, MTN Consulting’s latest forecast called for $320B of telco capex in 2023, down only slightly from the $328B recorded in 2022. Early 3Q23 revenue reports from vendors selling into the telco market call this forecast into question. The dip in the Americas is worse than expected, and Asia’s expected 2023 growth has not materialized.

Key vendors are reporting significant YoY drops in revenue, pointing to inventory corrections, macroeconomic uncertainty (interest rates, in particular), and weaker telco spending. Network infrastructure sales to telcos (Telco NI) for key vendors Ericsson and Nokia dropped 11% and 16% YoY in 3Q23, respectively, measured in US dollars. By the same metric, NEC, Fujitsu and Samsung saw +1%, -52%, and -41% YoY growth; Adtran, Casa, and Juniper declined 29%, 7%, and 20%; fiber-centric vendors Clearfield, Corning, CommScope, and Prysmian all saw double digit declines.

MTN Consulting will update its operator forecast formally next month. In advance, this comment flags a weaker spending outlook than expected. Telco capex for 2023 is likely to come in around $300-$310B.

References:

MTN Consulting’s Network Operator Forecast Through 2027: “Telecom is essentially a zero-growth industry”

MTN Consulting: Top Telco Network Infrastructure (equipment) vendors + revenue growth changes favor cloud service providers

Proposed solutions to high energy consumption of Generative AI LLMs: optimized hardware, new algorithms, green data centers

Cloud Service Providers struggle with Generative AI; Users face vendor lock-in; “The hype is here, the revenue is not”

Global Telco AI Alliance to progress generative AI for telcos

Amdocs and NVIDIA to Accelerate Adoption of Generative AI for $1.7 Trillion Telecom Industry

Bain & Co, McKinsey & Co, AWS suggest how telcos can use and adapt Generative AI

Generative AI Unicorns Rule the Startup Roost; OpenAI in the Spotlight

Generative AI in telecom; ChatGPT as a manager? ChatGPT vs Google Search

Generative AI could put telecom jobs in jeopardy; compelling AI in telecom use cases

MTN Consulting: Satellite network operators to focus on Direct-to-device (D2D), Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud-based services

MTN Consulting on Telco Network Infrastructure: Cisco, Samsung, and ZTE benefit (but only slightly)

MTN Consulting: : 4Q2021 review of Telco & Webscale Network Operators Capex

Granite Telecommunications expands its service offerings with Juniper Networks

Juniper Networks today announced that its customer and partner, Granite Telecommunications, a $1.8 billion provider of communications and technology solutions, has expanded its service offerings to include Juniper Networks’ full-stack of campus and branch services, including Wired Access, Wireless Access and SD-WAN, all driven by Mist AI™. This move will enhance Granite’s ability to support its customers’ unique verticals, such as healthcare, retail, education, manufacturing, hospitality and financial.

Granite has been working closely with Juniper for several years, and with this expanded AI-driven enterprise portfolio they now offer Juniper’s full suite of campus and branch networking solutions. By leveraging Mist AI and a single cloud across the wired, wireless and SD-WAN domains, Granite saves time and money with client-to-cloud automation and assurance, while accelerating deployments with Zero Touch Provisioning and automated configurations. In addition, Granite delivers more value to its customers with a broadened service portfolio that offers new highly differentiated services.

“Granite stands as Juniper’s largest AI-Driven SD-WAN partner in Managed Services within the Americas, underscoring the strength of our relationship and confidence in Juniper’s cutting-edge networking technology,” said Rob Hale, President and CEO at Granite. “As we expand our partnership, we are poised to elevate the customer experience to new heights by offering a full suite of Juniper solutions, imbued with the defining qualities of reliability, performance and security that characterize Juniper.”

Granite has been expanding its nationwide support to address the changing and growing needs of its customers. The company is committed to delivering specialized services for the unique requirements of its customers’ verticals. The addition of Juniper’s software-defined branch and wireless services is expected to be a significant benefit to many of its customer sectors. These services are designed to improve the performance and security of networks in various industries and make it easier for businesses to manage their network infrastructure.

“We are very excited to take our relationship with Granite Telecommunications to the next level,” said Sujai Hajela, Executive Vice President, AI-Driven Enterprise at Juniper Networks. “They have proven to be an exceptional partner and leader in the communications industry, who is especially adept at leveraging AI and the cloud to deliver high value managed services to their customers. With the full AI-driven enterprise portfolio, Granite can truly differentiate from their competition with exceptional client-to-cloud user experiences.”

With this expansion, Granite continues to demonstrate its commitment to providing customers with the best possible network experience. The addition of Juniper’s full-stack solutions will enable Granite to enhance its capabilities and better serve its customers, while also providing the company with a competitive edge in the market.

About Juniper Networks:

Juniper Networks is dedicated to dramatically simplifying network operations and driving superior experiences for end users. Our solutions deliver industry-leading insight, automation, security and AI to drive real business results. We believe that powering connections will bring us closer together while empowering us all to solve the world’s greatest challenges of well-being, sustainability and equality. Additional information can be found at Juniper Networks (www.juniper.net) or connect with Juniper on TwitterLinkedIn and Facebook.

References:

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230822074131/en/Juniper-Networks%E2%80%99-Full-Stack-AI-Driven-Solution-Expands-Service-and-Support-for-Granite-Telecommunications-Customers

https://www.granitenet.com/

 

TPG, Ericsson launch AI-powered analytics, troubleshooting service for 4G/5G Mobile, FWA, and IoT subscribers

Australia telco TPG Telecom  and  Ericsson today announced a new multi-year agreement to deliver an Australian-first cloud-native and AI-powered analytics tool to pinpoint and improve mobile network performance for customers.  Based on Ericsson Expert Analytics and EXFO Adaptive Service Assurance, the solution gives TPG Telecom’s Technology, Network and Care teams an in-depth, end-to-end understanding of subscriber’s experience at an individual level. Through the new agreement, TPG Telecom will gain insights from its 4G and 5G Mobile, Fixed Wireless Access and IoT subscribers using smart data collection with embedded intelligence to predict, prioritise, and resolve performance issues as they arise in real-time.

These insights will enable TPG Telecom to react quicker to network issues, improve performance and reduce the need for infrastructure-based diagnoses, allowing the telco to enhance its service experience for customers.

The solution integrates Ericsson Expert Analytics, EXFO adaptive service assurance and Ericsson software probes, provided as part of Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core, to deliver end-to-end network visibility and reduced total costs.

TPG Telecom is the first in Australia and one of the first communication service providers (CSP) globally to deploy Ericsson Expert Analytics in a commercial network using cloud-native technologies. As a cloud-native software, its embedded scalability, agility and resilience means it is designed to flexibly handle TPG Telecom’s requirements as its network and use-cases evolve, adapting to any unexpected challenges.

TPG Telecom General Manager Cloud/Infrastructure NW Services, Chris Tsigros, said: “TPG Telecom is committed to investing in cutting edge technology designed to provide superior network experience to every single one of our customers. The analytics and troubleshooting solution we’re implementing with Ericsson will help ensure we deliver a great experience for our customers. This new technology will change the way in which the TPG Telecom customer care team interacts with our customers, leading to greater effectiveness and increased customer satisfaction. It’s just another way we’re putting our customers first.”

Emilio Romeo, Head of Ericsson, Australia and New Zealand, says: “Embarking on this multi-year deployment of advanced analytics and troubleshooting capabilities with TPG Telecom further demonstrates our commitment to bringing the best mobile telecommunications experience to all Australians. It is the latest in a long history of working side by side with TPG Telecom to bring groundbreaking technology to Australia and a new level of service experience to the Australian people. With the Ericsson Expert Analytics solution implementation, and the real-time access to the data from the dual-mode 5G Core thanks to its built-in software probes, TPG Telecom can gain greater network visibility at a lower cost, passing on the benefits to its customers as they enjoy its services across the country.”

The initial deployment phase focused on acquiring profound insights and troubleshooting capabilities through the software probes built into Ericsson’s cloud-native dual-mode 5G Core. The state-of-the-art solution delivered to TPG adopts an innovative approach that combines probing and event-based monitoring, ensuring rapid and effective issue resolution.

One of the standout features of this deployed solution is its capacity to provide comprehensive troubleshooting across the entire network, all within a unified application. TPG benefits from a range of advanced functionalities, including On-Demand Troubleshooting and robust filtering capabilities, significantly expediting the identification and resolution of network challenges.

With this implementation, TPG Telecom gains the ability to trace and monitor subscriber sessions handled by the core network, which forms the foundation of TPG Telecom’s mobile network. Currently, the solution successfully monitors approximately 5 million subscribers, and its coverage continues to expand

The full solution will continue to be rolled out in phases of further enhancements, and will give TPG Telecom the ability to automatically detect issues from captured network and subscriber insights. TPG Telecom will also benefit from AI-powered recommendations for correction of any network or customer issues found.

Ericsson Expert Analytics is an open system designed for ease of integration in multi-vendor hybrid environments. The software solution is powered by anomaly detection techniques based on machine learning and artificial intelligence, transforming data at scale into actionable insights for better business outcomes. It is designed and used to analyze the real-time network data of more than 250 million subscribers of mobile telecommunications operators all over the world.

The solution follows the 2021 completion of the virtualisation of TPG Telecom’s core network and a new partnership to deploy Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core for standalone 5G networks.

About TPG TELECOM:

TPG Telecom Limited, formerly named Vodafone Hutchison Australia Limited, was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange on 30 June 2020. On 13 July 2020, this newly listed company merged with TPG Corporation Limited, formerly named TPG Telecom, to bring together the resources of two of Australia’s largest telecommunications companies, creating the leading challenger full-service telecommunications provider. TPG Telecom is home to some of Australia’s most-loved brands including Vodafone, TPG, iiNet, AAPT, Internode, Lebara and felix. https://www.tpgtelecom.com.au/

Resources:

Ericsson Expert Analytics

Ericsson dual-mode 5G Core

Securing 5G experience with software probes

Data and Analytics for better business outcomes

Cloud native is transforming the telecom industry

TPG Telecom and Ericsson announce 5G Core partnership for standalone 5G networks

TPG Telecom’s ground-breaking cloud transformation

References:

https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/7/2023/tpg-telecom-and-ericsson-launch-australian-first-analytics-and-troubleshooting-solution-to-boost-network-performance-for-customers

Cloud Service Providers struggle with Generative AI; Users face vendor lock-in; “The hype is here, the revenue is not”

Global Telco AI Alliance to progress generative AI for telcos

Park Place Technologies on network monitoring, predictive fault diagnosis and repair; Entuity acquisition adds analytics

Bain & Co, McKinsey & Co, AWS suggest how telcos can use and adapt Generative AI

Forbes: Cloud is a huge challenge for enterprise networks; AI adds complexity

 

Cloud Service Providers struggle with Generative AI; Users face vendor lock-in; “The hype is here, the revenue is not”

Everyone agrees that Generative AI has great promise and potential.  Martin Casado of Andreessen Horowitz recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the technology has “finally become transformative:”

“Generative AI can bring real economic benefits to large industries with established and expensive workloads. Large language models could save costs by performing tasks such as summarizing discovery documents without replacing attorneys, to take one example. And there are plenty of similar jobs spread across fields like medicine, computer programming, design and entertainment….. This all means opportunity for the new class of generative AI startups to evolve along with users, while incumbents focus on applying the technology to their existing cash-cow business lines.”

A new investment wave caused by generative AI is  starting to loom among cloud service providers, raising questions about whether Big Tech’s spending cutbacks and layoffs will prove to be short lived.  Pressed to say when they would see a revenue lift from AI, the big U.S. cloud companies (Microsoft, Alphabet/Google, Meta/FB and Amazon) all referred to existing services that rely heavily on investments made in the past. These range from the AWS’s machine learning services for cloud customers to AI-enhanced tools that Google and Meta offer to their advertising customers.

Microsoft offered only a cautious prediction of when AI would result in higher revenue. Amy Hood, chief financial officer, told investors during an earnings call last week that the revenue impact would be “gradual,” as the features are launched and start to catch on with customers. The caution failed to match high expectations ahead of the company’s earnings, wiping 7% off its stock price (MSFT ticker symbol) over the following week.

When it comes to the newer generative AI wave, predictions were few and far between. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on Thursday that the technology was in its “very early stages” and that the industry was only “a few steps into a marathon”. Many customers of Amazon’s cloud arm, AWS, see the technology as transformative, Jassy noted that “most companies are still figuring out how they want to approach it, they are figuring out how to train models.”  He insisted that every part of Amazon’s business was working on generative AI initiatives and the technology was “going to be at the heart of what we do.”

There are a number of large language models that power generative AI, and many of the AI companies that make them have forged partnerships with big cloud service providers. As business technology leaders make their picks among them, they are weighing the risks and benefits of using one cloud provider’s AI ecosystem. They say it is an important decision that could have long-term consequences, including how much they spend and whether they are willing to sink deeper into one cloud provider’s set of software, tools, and services.

To date, AI large language model makers like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere have led the charge in developing proprietary large language models that companies are using to boost efficiency in areas like accounting and writing code, or adding to their own products with tools like custom chatbots. Partnerships between model makers and major cloud companies include OpenAI and Microsoft Azure, Anthropic and Cohere with Google Cloud, and the machine-learning startup Hugging Face with Amazon Web Services.  Databricks, a data storage and management company, agreed to buy the generative AI startup MosaicML in June.

If a company chooses a single AI ecosystem, it could risk “vendor lock-in” within that provider’s platform and set of services, said Ram Chakravarti, chief technology officer of Houston-based BMC Software. This paradigm is a recurring one, where a business’s IT system, software and data all sit within one digital platform, and it could become more pronounced as companies look for help in using generative AI.  Companies say the problem with vendor lock-in, especially among cloud providers, is that they have difficulty moving their data to other platforms, lose negotiating power with other vendors, and must rely on one provider to keep its services online and secure.

Cloud providers, partly in response to complaints of lock-in, now offer tools to help customers move data between their own and competitors’ platforms. Businesses have increasingly signed up with more than one cloud provider to reduce their reliance on any single vendor. That is the strategy companies could end up taking with generative AI, where by using a “multiple generative AI approach,” they can avoid getting too entrenched in a particular platform. To be sure, many chief information officers have said they willingly accept such risks for the convenience, and potentially lower cost, of working with a single technology vendor or cloud provider.

A significant challenge in incorporating generative AI is that the technology is changing so quickly, analysts have said, forcing CIOs to not only keep up with the pace of innovation, but also sift through potential data privacy and cybersecurity risks.

A company using its cloud provider’s premade tools and services, plus guardrails for protecting company data and reducing inaccurate outputs, can more quickly implement generative AI off-the-shelf,  said Adnan Masood, chief AI architect at digital technology and IT services firm UST.  “It has privacy, it has security, it has all the compliance elements in there. At that point, people don’t really have to worry so much about the logistics of things, but rather are focused on utilizing the model.”

For other companies, it is a conservative approach to use generative AI with a large cloud platform they already trust to hold sensitive company data, said Jon Turow, a partner at Madrona Venture Group. “It’s a very natural start to a conversation to say, ‘Hey, would you also like to apply AI inside my four walls?’”

End Quotes:

“Right now, the evidence is a little bit scarce about what the effect on revenue will be across the tech industry,” said James Tierney of Alliance Bernstein.

Brent Thill, an analyst at Jefferies, summed up the mood among investors: “The hype is here, the revenue is not.  Behind the scenes, the whole industry is scrambling to figure out the business model [for generative AI]: how are we going to price it? How are we going to sell it?”

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References:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-has-finally-become-transformative-humans-scale-language-model-6a67e641

https://www.ft.com/content/56706c31-e760-44e1-a507-2c8175a170e8

https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-weigh-growing-power-of-cloud-providers-amid-ai-boom-478c454a

https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/definition/generative-AI?Offer=abt_pubpro_AI-Insider

Global Telco AI Alliance to progress generative AI for telcos

Curmudgeon/Sperandeo:  Impact of Generative AI on Jobs and Workers 

Bain & Co, McKinsey & Co, AWS suggest how telcos can use and adapt Generative AI

Generative AI Unicorns Rule the Startup Roost; OpenAI in the Spotlight

Generative AI in telecom; ChatGPT as a manager? ChatGPT vs Google Search

Generative AI could put telecom jobs in jeopardy; compelling AI in telecom use cases

Qualcomm CEO: AI will become pervasive, at the edge, and run on Snapdragon SoC devices

 

 

Bain & Co, McKinsey & Co, AWS suggest how telcos can use and adapt Generative AI

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) uncertainty is especially challenging for the telecommunications industry which has a history of very slow adaptation to change and thus faces lots of pressure to adopt generative AI in their services and infrastructure.  Indeed, Deutsche Telekom stated that AI poses massive challenges for telecom industry in this IEEE Techblog post.

Consulting firm Bain & Co. highlighted that inertia in a recent report titled,Telcos, Stop Debating Generative AI and Just Get Going”  Three partners stated network operators need to act fast in order to jump on this opportunity. “Speedy action trumps perfect planning here,” Herbert Blum, Jeff Katzin and Velu Sinha wrote in the brief.  “It’s more important for telcos to quickly launch an initial set of generative AI applications that fit the company’s strategy, and do so in a responsible way – or risk missing a window of opportunity in this fast-evolving sector.”

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Telcos can pursue generative AI applications across business functions, starting with knowledge management:

 

Separately, a McKinsey & Co. report opined that AI has highlighted business leader priorities. The consulting firm cited organizations that have top executives championing an organization’s AI initiatives, including the need to fund those programs. This is counter to organizations that lack a clear directive on their AI plans, which results in wasted spending and stalled development. “Reaching this state of AI maturity is no easy task, but it is certainly within the reach of telcos,” the firm noted. “Indeed, with all the pressures they face, embracing large-scale deployment of AI and transitioning to being AI-native organizations could be key to driving growth and renewal. Telcos that are starting to recognize this is non-negotiable are scaling AI investments as the business impact generated by the technology materializes.”

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Ishwar Parulkar, chief technologist for the telco industry at AWS, touted several areas that should be of generative AI interest to telecom operators. The first few were common ones tied to improving the customer experience. This includes building on machine learning (ML) to help improve that interaction and potentially reduce customer churn.

“We have worked with some leading customers and implemented this in production where they can take customer voice calls, translate that to text, do sentiment analysis on it … and then feed that into reducing customer churn,” Parulkar said. “That goes up another notch with generative AI, where you can have chat bots and more interactive types of interfaces for customers as well as for customer care agent systems in a call. So that just goes up another notch of generative AI.”

The next step is using generative AI to help operators bolster their business operations and systems. This is for things like revenue assurance and finding revenue leakage, items that Parulkar noted were in a “more established space in terms of what machine learning can do.”

However, Parulkar said the bigger opportunity is around helping operators better design and manage network operations. This is an area that remains the most immature, but one that Parulkar is “most excited about.”  This can begin from the planning and installation phase, with an example of helping technicians when they are installing physical equipment.

“In installation of network equipment today, you have technicians who go through manuals and have procedures to install routers and base stations and connect links and fibers,” Parulkar said. “That all can be now made interactive [using] chat bot, natural language kind of framework. You can have a lot of this documentation, training data that can train foundational models that can create that type of an interface, improves productivity, makes it easier to target specific problems very quickly in terms of what you want to deploy.”

This can also help with network configuration by using large datasets to help automatically generate configurations. This could include the ability to help configure routers, VPNs and MPLS circuits to support network performance.

The final area of support could be in the running of those networks once they are deployed. Parulkar cited functions like troubleshooting failures that can be supported by a generative AI model.

“There are recipes that operators go through to troubleshoot and triage failure,” Parulkar said “A lot of times it’s trial-and-error method that can be significantly improved in a more interactive, natural language, prompt-based system that guides you through troubleshooting and operating the network.”

This model could be especially compelling for operators as they integrate more routers to support disaggregated 5G network models for mobile edge computing (MEC), private networks and the use of millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum bands.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel this week also hinted at the ability for AI to help manage spectrum resources.

“For decades we have licensed large slices of our airwaves and come up with unlicensed policies for joint use in others,” Rosenworcel said during a speech at this week’s FCC and National Science Foundation Joint Workshop. “But this scheme is not truly dynamic. And as demands on our airwaves grow – as we move from a world of mobile phones to billions of devices in the internet of things (IoT)– we can take newfound cognitive abilities and teach our wireless devices to manage transmissions on their own. Smarter radios using AI can work with each other without a central authority dictating the best of use of spectrum in every environment. If that sounds far off, it’s not. Consider that a large wireless provider’s network can generate several million performance measurements every minute. And consider the insights that machine learning can provide to better understand network usage and support greater spectrum efficiency.”

While generative AI does have potential, Parulkar also left open the door for what he termed “traditional AI” and which he described as “supervised and unsupervised learning.”

“Those techniques still work for a lot of the parts in the network and we see a combination of these two,” Parulkar said. “For example, you might use anomaly detection for getting some insights into the things to look at and then followed by a generative AI system that will then give an output in a very interactive format and we see that in some of the use cases as well. I think this is a big area for telcos to explore and we’re having active conversations with multiple telcos and network vendors.”

Parulkar’s comments come as AWS has been busy updating its generative AI platforms. One of the most recent was the launch of its $100 million Generative AI Innovation Center, which is targeted at helping guide businesses through the process of developing, building and deploying generative AI tools.

“Generative AI is one of those technological shifts that we are in the early stages of that will impact all organizations across the globe in some form of fashion,” Sri Elaprolu, senior leader of generative AI at AWS, told SDxCentral. “We have the goal of helping as many customers as we can, and as we need to, in accelerating their journey with generative AI.”

References:

https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/analysis/aws-sees-a-role-for-generative-ai-in-the-telecom-space/2023/07/

https://www.bain.com/insights/telcos-stop-debating-generative-ai-and-just-get-going/

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/the-ai-native-telco-radical-transformation-to-thrive-in-turbulent-times

Deutsche Telekom exec: AI poses massive challenges for telecom industry

Generative AI in telecom; ChatGPT as a manager? ChatGPT vs Google Search

Generative AI could put telecom jobs in jeopardy; compelling AI in telecom use cases

Generative AI Unicorns Rule the Startup Roost; OpenAI in the Spotlight

Forbes: Cloud is a huge challenge for enterprise networks; AI adds complexity

Qualcomm CEO: AI will become pervasive, at the edge, and run on Snapdragon SoC devices

Bloomberg: China Lures Billionaires Into Race to Catch U.S. in AI

 

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