Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (00:16):
Welcome to Extra Shot Live from Windsor at the DSP Leaders World Forum where I'm delighted to be joined by a very special guest. He was on stage actually a few minutes ago. It's Diego Lopez. Diego, your senior technology expert at Telefonica, and an ETSI fellow as well. Thanks for joining us today.

Diego Lopez, Telefonica (00:34):
Thanks you for having me here.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (00:36):
So you are on stage, like I have said to discuss network automation. So could you maybe share the key takeaways actually the key messaging you were sharing with the audience today?

Diego Lopez, Telefonica (00:47):
Basically have been two. One is that automation has been around for a long, long time. We haven't been applying some degrees of automation since network started, but the important thing right now is that we have the possibility of doing or smarter automation that we may use something that is able to adapt to the changes, et cetera. And that for this, what we need is continuous and trustworthy flow of data. And this is maintaining those flows of data and quarantining those data are useful. Is the key for making automation realize its potential.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (01:26):
Data management is important, but it's also very challenging, isn't it? You've got security issues, you've got storage issues, you've got use issue. And of course we are overflowing with data, aren't we? Definitely. And with the eyes, it's only going to get worse. So how do we go about managing data efficiently For network automation,

Diego Lopez, Telefonica (01:41):
What we're trying to do is to build what they call a data infrastructures is mechanisms to take advantage of the distributed nature of the networks so the data can be made available where and when they are required and be processed. Because the point is, what is important is not about the raw data by itself is important, but what's important is the features and the characteristics of the knowledge that you can derive from it. And this how we can move data around so we can take advantage of the knowledge that is associated with it.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (02:19):
And Diego, of course, this year at the forum, we've had many conversations around AI because there's been a step change with gen AI in particular. How much of a game changer is it when it comes to network automation?

Diego Lopez, Telefonica (02:30):
Well, no, it is essential. We were discussing during the session about the idea of how we were trying to identify early symptoms of disruptions in the network. And we are relying very much on AI the same way. The same way. We use very often the same example, the same way that we rely, for example, on dogs to detect things that we cannot detect because our sensors are not well trained for that or are not suited for detecting. This is the same way, relying on these additional tools that we are starting to have to detect those conditions that are related to disruptions and detect them before they have a serious impact.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (03:14):
And of course one of the greatest fears related to AI is the possibility that it could replace humans. So what place remains for human operatives in the well in network operations? I mean, will they play any role at all? Would they be augmented by ai? Would they be replaced by ai? What's your take on it?

Diego Lopez, Telefonica (03:33):
I believe that it is going to be another tool, a powerful tool, but the tool that would require humans to be around, think about one thing, and this is something iist very much when talking about with colleagues about this. An AI is a system that we program is no more than a computer program. But the difference is that we are programming it in a different way. We are training it, we say we are training it, but we are doing is feeding data to make it behave in a particular way. And this is basically just programming. It's like when I was young, we tend to use assembler that it was a very, very primitive language. Then we see and then we have to learn Java and then we have to learn Python. And right now we will have to learn prompting or whatever they call it to train the ai.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (04:20):
And finally, Diego, to wrap up our conversation before we move on to the last session of the day, I was wondering if you could maybe share your thoughts on where the sector is at currently. What's the state of play? What would you say are the key challenges and maybe opportunities

Diego Lopez, Telefonica (04:41):
In general for the sector? I would say that is about embracing all the possibilities that what, well, at least in my team, we commonly refer to this as network transformation. Something that started probably 10, 12 years ago with the advent of SDN network virtualization, all the like is to find all the full possibilities that this is offered to make the network something that is much more flexible and much more able to adapt to the needs of their users and well in general associates.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (05:14):
So you sound enthusiastic and optimistic actually.

Diego Lopez, Telefonica (05:17):
Always, always,

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (05:18):
Always.

Diego Lopez, Telefonica (05:19):
I do. Believing in humankind, it's

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (05:22):
A way of being. Absolutely. Well thank you so much Jacob. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. Thank you on extra shot. We are back in one hour to give you more thoughts on the floor here at DSP Leaders World Forum live from Windsor. Thank you.