Summits

Open Telco AI Summit

Pre-registered & Approved have priority Physical

Date

Tue, 10 Nov

Time

14:30 - 16:30 AST

Doors Open

14:25 AST

Location

Frontier Stage

Presented By

Louis Powell, Director of AI initiatives GSMA Technology

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Session Description

Mobile networks and Artificial Intelligence are converging into a new Intelligent Connectivity Era, in which ubiquitous mobile connectivity becomes the foundation for AI's widespread adoption and democratisation. Closing the gap between AI in applications and AI inside the network is not the work of operators alone - it requires the wider AI ecosystem, working with operators on a single shared pathway.​

The Pathway: From Telco-Grade AI to AI-Native Networks​

Two reinforcing GSMA initiatives sit on this pathway. Open Telco AI - launched in Barcelona on 2 March 2026 with AT&T and AMD as founding supporters - delivers the open foundations of Telco-Grade AI: the benchmarks, open models, open data, accessible compute and contributor community that make telecom AI trustworthy, interoperable and operator-ready. The GSMA Open Telco AI Community then applies that Telco-Grade AI across the arc of network evolution towards autonomous networks. ​

Building Telco-Grade AI at MWC Doha​

The Open Telco AI Summit is the technical showcase of Building Telco-Grade AI in action. Across two hours on a single stage, founding-partner operators, silicon and network vendors, and the academic centres behind the open foundations walk attendees through the Five Open Building Blocks - and the agentic AI, capability-building and partnership programmes built on top of them.

 

Agenda:

 

Time 

Session 

Speaker / Panelists 

Duration 

14:30 

Welcome and opening remarks 

Louis Powell, Director of AI Initiatives, GSMA 

5 mins 

14:35 

Sponsor Address

TBC 

10 mins 

14:45 

Panel 1:   "Is the AI Hype Dead? Telco AI One Year On" 

It has been over a year since we started talking about using AI in Telco environments.  Since then, much has happened around developing Telco specific AI but is there anyhard evidence of accuracy, efficiency and trustworthy AI, or are we still talking a better game than we're playing? 

  • Is the hype cycle over? - has Telco AI quietly passed through its "trough of disillusionment," or are we still in it? What's are the ‘tells’ - are vendor claims cooling off, or operators actually walking away from pilots having? 
  • Accuracy and efficiency, tested - where has AI actually been put in front of real network conditions this year, and did it hold up? What's the honest failure rate nobody puts in the press release? 
  • Trust, earned or assumed - a year ago, would anyone have let a model touch live network configuration unsupervised? Has that changed, and what changed it -better models, better guardrails, or just growing comfort? 
  • The 12-month retrospective - since this debate started, what's the single experience (good or bad) that most changed a panelist's mind? Concretely: what do they believe now that they didn't a year ago? 

Host: Lina Bariah, Khalifa University 

40 mins 

15:25 

Break

 

15 mins 

15:40 

Panel 2:  "Show Me the Number: What AI Has Actually Returned in the Network" 

Framing: this panel moves past ambition to evidence - what operators can point to today as measurable value from AI deployments, and what "ROI" even means when part of the payoff is avoided cost or risk rather than new revenue. 

  • Defining the ROI - capex/opex reduction, MTTR improvement, energy savings, reduced truck-rolls, or something else - what metric has actually moved the needle for the panelists' organisations? 

  • Benchmarking the claims - How do operators separate vendor benchmark claims from real operational evidence, and could a shared leaderboard change vendor behaviour? 

  • Time to value - how long from pilot to measurable payback in practice, and what's killed ROI on projects that didn't pan out? 

Host: Merouanne Debbah, Professor, Khalifa University

 

40 Mins 

16:20 

Closing 

 

Louis Powell, Director of AI Initiatives, GSMA 

10 Mins 

Doors Open: 14:25 AST

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