15 Mar 2026
16:00 - 18:30
Room 502B
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to rapidly transform the telecommunications sector. This workshop will explore the added value and challenges of AI for telecom operators across key domains and across the lifecycle of the network. Examples of use cases to be discussed include AI-assisted network planning and modeling, as well as AI-assisted optical network control and management via real-time anomaly detection, automated troubleshooting, and enhanced predictive maintenance. AI can also enable dynamic resource allocation and can facilitate the rollout of complex technologies, enabling efficient, cost-effective, and resilient network deployment and operation. The workshop will include speakers from network operators, system integrators, and academia who will share their insights into using Generative AI, LLMs, AI agents, and even AGI in current and future use cases for AI in optical networks, along with the challenges of deploying AI.
The key questions to address in this workshop are:
- What are the near-term and long-term use cases for AI in optical networks?
- To what extent and in what dimensions can AI create value for network operators?
- What roles will LLMs, GenAI, and Agents play in optical networks?
- Are AI technologies ready for deployment in optical networks?
- What limitations does AI face in optical networks?
- What risks are associated with using AI in optical networks?
- How can issues related to the reliability and generalizability of AI in optical networks be addressed?
- How should vendors and operators collaborate to develop and deploy AI for optical networks?
Organizers
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Lynn Nelson
AT&T, United States
Lynn Nelson is Director Member of Technical Staff for AT&T in Middletown, NJ, where she leads the Optical Platforms group responsible for design and development of AT&T’s metro and long-distance optical transport networks. After receiving her PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she worked for Lucent Technologies Bell Labs and OFS prior to joining AT&T in 2006. She has served as OFC Technical Program Chair (2005) and General Chair (2007) and as an Associate Editor for PTL. She is an OSA Fellow, a Senior Member of IEEE, and has over 200 publications and holds over 20 patents.
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Yanni Ou
Beijing University of Posts & Telecom, China
Dr. Yanni Ou is a Professor at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, where she has served since 2021. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Bristol, UK, and previously worked as a researcher at Nokia Bell Labs in Germany. Her research focuses on high-speed flexible optical transmission, optical network convergence and intelligence, and optical quantum photonics and networking. She has contributed to ITU-T and ETSI standards and served on TPCs for conferences including OFC, ACP, and PIERS.
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Qunbi Zhuge
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Qunbi Zhuge is Professor and Vice Dean of the School of Information Science and Electronic Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His current research interests include coherent optical communication, intelligent optical network, data center interconnects, and optical-wireless convergence. He has published over 300 academic papers. He is PI and Co-PI of several national research grants. He has served as the Chair of OFC S4 and editorial board member of journals including Optics Express. He has supervised students to win many international awards including the OFC 2020 Corning outstanding student paper competition grand prize winner, the 2025 IEEE Photonics Society Graduate Student Scholarship and the 2024 Optica Corning women in optical fiber communications scholarship.
Speakers
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Christopher Janz
Huawei Technologies Canada, Canada
Dr. Christopher Janz is Director of Huawei Canada’s Advanced Optical Technology Lab. He has been active in the network softwarization and automation area for many years, leading and contributing to work on intent, digital twins, closed loops and agentics in ONF, ETSI and IETF/IRTF. He is a thirty-year industry veteran, working in the UK, France and Canada at companies including Alcatel and Ciena and in roles ranging from research and engineering management to product management and corporate strategy. Dr. Janz has worked and published in areas from III-V device design to optical switching systems and network management.
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Daniel Kilper
University of Dublin Trinity College, Ireland
Dr. Daniel Kilper is Chaired Professor of Future Communication Networks and Head of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He is a senior member of IEEE and co-chairs the optics working group in the IEEE International Network Generations Roadmap. Since 2018 he has been an adjunct research faculty member of the Data Science Institute at Columbia University. He co-founded Palo Verde Networks and LightSensAI. In 2019, he was recognized as a NIST Communications Technology Lab Innovator and holds eleven issued patents and has authored six book chapters and more than two hundred peer-reviewed publications.
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Patricia Layec
Nokia Bell Labs France, France
Patricia Layec is a research department head at Nokia Bell Labs focusing on optical network monitoring, anomaly detection & localization, and optical fiber sensing. She obtained the PhD degree from Paris-Sud XI University in 2009. After completing her doctoral thesis with Orange, she joined Alcatel-Lucent, now Nokia, in 2009 to work in R&D on mobile technologies. She joined Bell Labs in 2011 to work on optical fiber communications. She led the European research project EO-NET, which won the ‘Celtic-Plus Gold Excellence Award’ in 2014. She has authored and co-authored over 130 scientific publications and filed around twenty patents.
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Shikui Shen
China Unicom, China
SHEN Shikui, PhD, works at Research Institute of China Unicom as a Professor-level Senior engineer; he is also China Institute of Communications (CIC) Senior Member, IET Chartered Engineer, IEEE Senior Member, and Optica member. He received doctor's degree from Beijing Institute of Technology in 2011, received bachelor's degree from Wuhan University in 2006. He is focusing on research, standardization and application of optical network techniques since joining China Unicom in 2011. He has participated in ITU-T standardization work since 2012, served as ITU-T SG15 Q6 associate Rapporteur currently, and has developed several ITU-T Recommendations.
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Andrew Shiner
Ciena, Canada
Andrew Shiner is an AI Architect at Ciena, leading the development of AI solutions for the Navigator Network Control Suite that help operators better understand, manage, and optimize telecommunications networks. Over his 13 years at Ciena, Andrew has innovated in optical propagation, fiber sensing, modem design, and network-level optimization, leading to more than 20 patents. He earned his PhD in Physics (Extreme Nonlinear Optics) from the University of Ottawa and a Master’s in Physics (Optical Metrology) from York University. With the Navigator team, he leverages AI and network data to help customers manage the scale and complexity of modern networks.
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Raghu Valisammagari
Verizon, United States
Raghu Valisammagari is a Distinguished Engineer at Verizon, where he leads AI and Generative AI strategy and implementation for Transport Networks. His work focuses on applying AI/ML for advanced network security and developing GenAI solutions for E2E converged networks, including Optical Transport Networks.
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Cen Wang
KDDI Research Inc., Japan
Cen Wang is currently with KDDI Research, Inc. in Japan as the leader of the AI-over-All-Photonics-Network (APN) project team. With a strong focus on AI for Network and Network for AI, Cen has been deeply involved in driving technical innovation and practical deployment in these fields.
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Larry Zhou
AT&T, United States
Larry Zhou, AT&T Fellow and Lead Network Architect, spearheads the design of AT&T’s global network services, spanning the internet backbone, core, edge, business, and residential domains. He has led transformative innovations in SDN, universal CPE whitebox, virtual network functions, and service chaining—pioneering the shift from hardware-based appliances to software-defined networks. Larry’s research drives the next era of connectivity through distributed edge computing and the integration of Agentic AI, autonomous networking, and network automation—enabling intelligent, self-managing, and fully integrated digital networks.
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Zuqing Zhu
Univ. of Science and Technology of China, China
Zuqing Zhu received his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Davis, in 2007. From 2007 to 2011, he worked in the Service Provider Technology Group of Cisco Systems, San Jose, California, as a Senior Engineer. In January 2011, he joined the University of Science and Technology of China, where he currently is a Full Professor. He is the Lead Series Editor of the Optical Communications and Networks Series of IEEE Communications Magazine, the Area Editor on Optical Communications and Networking of IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, etc. He is a Fellow of IEEE.