Telstra is building a digital twin of its international network assets, with the intention of using AI-powered digital modelling to automate management and to solve network issues. 

Sketching out the Australian telco's AI initiatives, Roary Stasko, CEO of Telstra International, said creation of the digital version of the network would drive automation and enable dynamic processing of inventory and traffic.

A digitally twinned network would allow the company to present real-time information to customers about assets and capabilities, and for network ops teams to have new tools to dynamically solve issues thrown up by, say, a cyberattack or an earthquake.

But digital twins are built on granular data, and most of Telstra's asset records are still captive in legacy inventory systems or Excel spreadsheets.

"These networks are incredibly complex, with cable sectors and legs, cable landing stations, repeaters and every little component needing to be logged," said Stasko.

A bit of work to do

"So we're systematically working through all of our inventory, all of our network data, and all of our IT data, to digitize them and put them into a clean format. We've got a bit of work to do to be very honest," he added.

In Telstra's biggest AI initiative, unveiled in August, it signed Microsoft as an early customer on its new high-speed intercity fiber network. In return Telstra bought 21,000 Copilot licenses for internal use.

The company has also deployed an AI model to build an "answer engine" for frontline employees that queries all internal resources to respond to customer inquiries.

But when it comes to AI's impact on the core bandwidth business, Stasko – like most people in the capacity sector – can't give an estimate. There's an obvious need to connect all the data centers now being planned, but nobody knows how big this uptick in demand is going to be.

However, he does anticipate that, compared to the current wave of cloud services, GenAI inference engines will have relatively low latency requirements. He thinks those running AI models will be willing to trade off latency for reliable, green, low-cost energy.

He added that Telstra, which is the largest bandwidth holder in Asia-Pacific, had good partnerships with the Internet giants that now dominate bandwidth and cable investments.

He expects over the next five to ten years hyperscalers would continue to lead major cable projects because of their ability to fund them from internal demand, while Telstra saw a continuing role as an operating partner.