Is the "AI Elixir" finally here for Service Providers?
In this episode of ZKast, Zeus Kerravala sits down with Simon Dumbleton, CTO of Europe for World Wide Technology (WWT), from Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona. As the European telecom landscape faces unique challenges—from data sovereignty and strict regulation to the "Post-Quantum Cryptography" migration—service providers are looking for a pragmatic path to modernization. Simon and Zeus dive deep into how operators are moving past AI experimentation to find real-world ROI in the NOC and beyond. 🔍
Key Topics Covered:
- The Sovereignty Shift: Why Europe is taking a pragmatic approach to "Secure by Design" infrastructure.
- Monetizing the Network: Moving beyond "unlimited data" to AI inference-as-a-service.
- Lessons from 5G to 6G: Why 6G needs to "cut the cord" on backwards compatibility to truly innovate.
- The AI Proving Ground: How WWT's Advanced Technology Center (ATC) uses digital twins to de-risk massive telco migrations.
- Network Optimization: Using AI to clean up "human-unreadable" legacy configurations.