Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
We're in London for the Linux Foundation's Open Networking and Edge Summit. I'm here with Dr. Masahisa Kawashima. He's the IOWN Technology Director at the NTT Corp and Chair of the Technology Working Group at the IOWN Global Forum. Dr. Kawashima, thank you very much for joining us. Good to see you.

Masahisa Kawashima, NTT Corp.:
Thank you very much for having me.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
So can you just give us a high-level overview of the IOWN Global Forum and just explain what is IOWN all about?

Masahisa Kawashima, NTT Corp.:
Okay. So IOWN stands for Innovative Optical and Wireless Network, and we are trying to develop next-generation computing and networking infrastructure, taking advantage of the recent evolution of optical communication technologies. The reason why we are doing this activity is, now, societies want infrastructures more resilient and also more energy-efficient.
At the same time, we want infrastructure to support data-driven societies. So we have to move data very efficiently. So today's packet networks are very good to enhance security and resiliency with some SDN-type operation, but they are not good at moving large data energy efficiently.
So what we are trying to do at IOWN Global Forum is to develop optical transport, which is very energy-efficient by nature, but at the same time, which can be operated with SDN applications. This is one advancement, what we are trying to achieve at IOWN Global Forum.
As a result, societies will be able to build AI infrastructure, connecting customer sites with AI computing data centers with high-speed, low-latency, energy-efficient connections.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
So, essentially, what we're talking about here is all-optical networking, end-to-end optical connectivity. But is that something that's actually possible in wide-area networks today?

Masahisa Kawashima, NTT Corp.:
Today, with DWD transceivers, we can send the data over a hundred kilometers, and one of the issues is cost, but we believe that we can start with connecting data centers and some large customer sites like industrial research parks or some large enterprise campuses. That should work.
So we will go through a step-by-step evolution. But back to your question, of course, APN can be applied to a one-scale operation.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
In terms of the kind of optical technologies that would be used here, you're talking about the new generation of pluggable optics. Is that right?

Masahisa Kawashima, NTT Corp.:
Yes. So today, DWDM transceivers have become pluggable and can be installed into customer routers, and some industries have started defining open standards for such transceivers, such as OpenZR+ and so on.
So with those transceivers, customers can plug transceivers into customers' routers. So we are trying to develop a new network that embraces this industry trend.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
Can you tell us about some of the use cases for this all-optical photonic network right now? I mean, what kind of companies might be able to make use of this kind of setup in 2025?

Masahisa Kawashima, NTT Corp.:
Okay. Now, at IOWN Global Forum, we are trying to promote three use cases. One is the financial service institutes. Typically, financial service institutes should operate a pair of data centers and let databases to deploy to data centers and let them synchronize. One of the issues with today's situation is that, now, banks are struggling with finding additional power or additional space in financial districts.
So what we are trying to achieve is to solve this problem by applying APN so that banks can utilize data centers a little bit different from traditional financial districts, but connect such distant data centers with IOWN APN and can let the distributed databases synchronize. This is one use case.
The second use case is remote video production. So the TV broadcasters would like to do live feed of sports games, or musical concerts, and so on. But today, they have to send a large truck to the event venue to do the editing. But sending this is very costly.
So what we are trying to achieve with IOWN APN is to enable TV broadcasters to gather videos over the APN and let TV broadcasters do editing at the cloud site so that they don't have to send trucks to the event venue.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
Okay.

Masahisa Kawashima, NTT Corp.:
So this is the second use case, and the third use case is, of course, AI. So many enterprises wants to develop AI-powered products or services. But one of the issue is how they can get AI computing resources for their AI product services development.
So what we would do with IOWN APN is to connect such enterprises, product, or service development sites with AI computing data centers over IOWN APN so that enterprises can use GPU resources as a service basis. That would help them accelerate the enterprise's AI product or service development. So that's the third use case.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
Are these use cases just theoretical at the moment, or are there any companies actually putting these into use today?

Masahisa Kawashima, NTT Corp.:
Oh, great. That's a great question. So at IOWN Global Forum, we have many members from the technology user side. For example, for financial service use case, we have Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group to define the key requirements and KPI for our technology experiments. So this is a unique process of IOWN Global Forum.
So we invite the members from the technology user side and develop, define key requirements and KPI, and then develop technology collaboratively. So for remote video production, we have Sony, and also, we have TBS as a good advisor for our use case activity. TBS is Japanese TV broadcaster.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
Okay.

Masahisa Kawashima, NTT Corp.:
For AI products, for remote GPU use case, we have several industry companies who are participating in this POC project.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
So what needs to happen next to advance this approach to networking? Are there a lot of companies globally working as part of the forum to advance this, or do you need more companies to get involved?

Masahisa Kawashima, NTT Corp.:
We have many telecom service providers in the world. For example, Orange and Telefonica, and British Telecom are members of the IOWN Global Forum. So I would say what happens next is to do what we do in Japan, what NTT does in Japan. So ask Orange or to have other telecom providers outside of Japan to do the same thing-

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
Okay.

Masahisa Kawashima, NTT Corp.:
... outside of Japan.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
When do you think that might start to happen? Is this something that they're trialing already, or is there a timeline for these kind of things to happen beyond Japan?

Masahisa Kawashima, NTT Corp.:
I'm hoping that that will happen in this year or next year.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
Okay.

Masahisa Kawashima, NTT Corp.:
They are now interested in the result of our POC activity, and I think see that many telecom service providers outside of Japan are now showing more interest in our activity in IOWN Global Forum, the APN.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
Well, I mean this is a very interesting development and obviously links very closely with the increasing use of AI-

Masahisa Kawashima, NTT Corp.:
Yes, yes.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
... and development of GPU as a service for many companies. So good timing for the IOWN Global Forum, I would say. I look forward to chatting again in the future and finding out how this is developing. Dr. Kawashima, thank you very much for your time.

Masahisa Kawashima, NTT Corp.:
Thank you very much.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV:
Thank you.