Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:06):
We are at BT's Secure Tomorrow Festival at a Adastral Park, the Operators Research and Development Center just outside Ipswich in the uk. And I'm with Gabriela Styf Sjöman. She is the Managing Director of Research and Network Strategy at BT. Gabriela, thanks very much for joining us today. Lots of really great discussions at the festival here about all aspects of security, network security services, security, et cetera. But one of the key areas of development that I'm really interested and I know you are working on is quantum safe networking. Can you just give us an update on BT's developments in this area? Because BTs kind of ahead of the game in many ways here, isn't it?

Gabriela Styf Sjöman, BT (00:48):
Yes, we are. First of all, thank you so much for having me here. I want to start by saying why this is relevant for us. And on the one hand, I mean I think we've been looking into quantum doing research in quantum for many years. Predominantly we've been looking at quantum computing, trying to understand the technology and on the one hand this is super exciting. We all know that it is coming. And by the way, quantum has been around for many, many years, so it's not new. What is new is we know we understand it more and we know what to do with it. So on the one hand, quantum computing is going to bring a tremendous power to solve for problems that classical computers take hours, days, or years to solve for. And we know that with a quantum computer, it probably will take seconds.

(01:33):
That same opportunity, you can translate to a threat and the biggest threat is on encryption and cryptography. So think about the amount of data that we have out there governments or enterprises have that needs long-term security today. If that is stolen to decrypt that and to crack that probably could take years, maybe up to 10 years with a classical computer because the mathematics of this is so complex. But with the quantum computer, it could take seconds. So we need to protect that. The other is of course, also public and private keys the same there. A quantum computer could actually crack those in just a second. So we focus on cryptography and encryption and the role of quantum computers on that and therefore we also turn around and say, well, our role is a national player for critical infrastructure. We need to protect our networks against these threats, but above all, we need to protect our customer's data.

(02:37):
So this is why I just wanted to explain this is why we focused for years during the research and now we've taken it further. So now we see we were the first in the world to launch a commercial trial for Quantum Secure Network. So focusing on quantum key distribution with our partner Toshiba. We were the first in the world to launch this network in London and in the coming days, actually tomorrow we will also be extending this partnership with Equinix where we want to be able to provide a quantum secure comms link between two data centers. So this is what we're doing and we continue the journey. So we're focusing on quantum key distribution, but also on post quantum cryptography, which is going to be key as well. So we'll need to focus on the mathematical aspect of this as well as the physical aspect of this. And that's key for us. We are so critical for the nation. We operate and run these critical national infrastructure and we need to be ahead of the game. And quantum is coming, it's already here actually I would say. And we need to just be ready. We need to help our customers also be quantum ready.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (03:48):
Now also a daville park has been here very long time. It's the center of BTS r and d. But things are changing, aren't they? I mean, there's been talk in recent years that this center might slim down, that it might have fewer people that the r and d might be distributed to other parts of the BT empire. What's the current status of the as park is they're going to be here for years to come. How is that evolving?

Gabriela Styf Sjöman, BT (04:17):
I mean, we announced last year that in order to do more for our customers, we want to tap into other ecosystems in the uk and we try to follow the ecosystem we follow, especially from a research perspective. It's important for us to understand where are the different ecosystems, where's the research we collaborate with different universities and being close to them is going to be critical. We not doing, you have to remember also that Asto Park, there are different tenants. Research is one organization, but then we have network services. And from a research perspective, this remains our anchoring point. But certainly we have an ambition and we have to follow the ecosystem. Especially when we talk about quantum. If you look at in the UK today, quantum computing, well you have Oxford, Cambridge, but when it comes to quantum key distribution and that talk optical networking, well maybe it's Bristol universities. So I think for us is we have to follow that ecosystem in order to be able to be those thought leaders and also drive the technology forward.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (05:18):
So is there a long-term future for Adastral park? Is this going to be part of bts r and d operations for the foreseeable future?

Gabriela Styf Sjöman, BT (05:25):
Adastral Park has been a strategic site for BT group and remains one of the key strategic sites for BT group.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (05:32):
At the same time, the nature it seems of innovation in the telecom sector is changing. 20 years ago, I guess it was all about network systems and a lot about hardware. Now, virtualization, cloud native ai, this is at the center of a lot of r and d processes. How is the nature of innovation within companies like BT changing?

Gabriela Styf Sjöman, BT (05:58):
It's changing big time, and I do think you're actually touching upon something that is really, really central to innovation in telecom space. If you think back 15, 20 years, even up to 10 years, most of the innovation was taken via standardization because standardization is critical for us. But because scale matters, but that means that most of, I mean what I buy, my competitors buy. So it's been very difficult to differentiate and to drive competitive advantage out of that type of innovation. Much of our innovation has been through standardization. This is how we channeled innovation because we have to scale our business. That's a business that we're in. On the other hand, now, a lot of the technology, as you rightly said, it's evolving. It's becoming more software being desegregated. So clarification, virtualization, programmability, ai, I often talk about as a service, network as a service, but it's becoming more AI driven as well.

(07:05):
So that's where the programmability comes in. But what does that mean that probably now for the first time in many years, we are going to be given the opportunity to innovate on top of the network, not necessarily in the network, but on top of the network by exposing these programmable network APIs. And I want to emphasize network APIs because we often talk about APIs. I say they're like fruit. There's a difference between a watermelon and a kiwi. So a network, API, but even a programmable network, API and the value that generates for us to be able to capture that market on top of the network. So there's a big shift taking place not only about from AI but from that programmability software. But this requires more change than just the technology. This is a cultural shift. It's actually an operating model shift because it requires, if you're going to be, and probably this is some ways the journey that we talk about going from telco to teco, which is to become a product company, a true product company.

(08:11):
I often say that, well, how do we become a true product company? Many of our products are propositions, not necessarily a product that we ourselves built. So to do that, we need to have a true product management, a development organization, and we need to also decide what products do we build on top of that network that scale and give us that competitive advantage. So absolutely you're spot on. A lot of things is happening and to take, but there I think where do we take inspiration from? I think that often we make the mistake that we look at our classical competitors, but when you look at the challenges that we face, it's not only from the classical competitors, our value chains, because of that technology, because of desegregation, the value chains are being disaggregated and therefore we see a new entrance coming in. Very niche players, some from the telco space, some are platform players.

(09:10):
Even retailers are having an interest in coming in from different angles. So I encourage always my colleagues, my teams to look at other industries. We have to try to understand what are others doing, and above all, we need to speak more to our customers, take inspiration from what they're trying to solve for, what do they need to offer their customers, and how do we innovate to solve? Because innovation, I always distinguish between, well, let's not only talk about differentiation because if you can differentiate without developing a competitive advantage or you can differentiate without delivering value, it has to always be connected to the customer. Being customer centric and how do I generate that value? Focus on customer experience, customer value and lifecycle value of my customer.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (10:01):
Just to finish, are there any other particular telecom operators around the world who are engaged in r and d processes that you are looking at or partnering with to see what they're doing? There's always an awful lot going on in Northeast Asia and Japan in particular, but also Scandinavia. There's always seems to be a lot of innovation within the network operator community. Any particular partners or companies that you look out for?

Gabriela Styf Sjöman, BT (10:32):
So what we do, we talk to many of our peers and we engage with them. But I would love to partner because I would love to collaborate and I think sometimes we're afraid of collaborating more, but I say, let's collaborate and we have to become more relevant in our space. So maybe it's not my competitor who's my biggest thread, it's those new entrants. We're eating that piece of the pie that I want to capture. So I would love to collaborate more. And we definitely are. Of course we talk, I just came back from Japan, we talked to SoftBank entity. Yes, we are talking to the Scandinavian operators as well. Sometimes the us. But would I say we're really collaborating, not as I believe we could. And as much as I would like us to do to truly collaborate to create a value proposition from the telco world, that's what we need to do. We need to recapture our value in the value chain. Well,

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (11:36):
That's a great note to end on. Gabriela, thanks so much for joining us, talking to us today and really exciting what we're seeing here at the festival as well. Again,

Gabriela Styf Sjöman, BT (11:44):
Thank you for being here.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (11:46):
Thank you for taking the time. Great to see you again.