Broadcom's Sylvain Cazard and Paul Turner discuss the key trends shaping the future of telecom, including the critical role of AI, cloud strategies, and the 5G transition. As operators face the challenges of managing complex infrastructures and minimizing costs, Broadcom's VCF platform offers a unified approach to streamline operations, supporting both traditional and AI workloads.
The conversation also delves into the importance of collaboration and partnerships to drive telecom innovation. With AI set to revolutionize both network operations and customer services, the role of telcos in providing secure, sovereign AI services is emerging as a key focus. As operators work to adapt to these changes, Broadcom’s solutions offer the agility needed to thrive in an increasingly competitive market.
Diana Goovaerts:
Paul and Sylvain, it's great to be with you here on the show floor at MWC. So Sylvain, maybe we start with you. Talk to me a little bit about what stands out to you here at the show.
Sylvain Cazard:
Of course, very impressed by the crowd, especially the presence of Asia Pacific vendors and players. They're really at the forefront of the innovation in the telco industry. Of course the classic topic 4G, 5G, monetization, cloud, and of course AI, still early stage, figuring out the right platforms and the right use cases.
Diana Goovaerts:
So, I heard you mentioned 5G and AI, and I know that this is not an easy transition for operators. So, talk to me a little bit about what kind of support Paul do operators need as they make this transition.
Paul Turner:
So look for operators, of course, everything is about how can they do the most effective cost management of their infrastructure as possible. This 5G transition has been incredibly difficult. It's actually a very costly transition. It's a complex transition, because they've been actually moving what is, they've got VNF and virtual machine-based network function environments, they've got container-based network function environments, CNFs as we call them. They've got their OSS BSS applications. Really what they need is a common way of managing that infrastructure. They need one way to manage it. It needs a way to actually drive a much more efficient cost for them.
And what we're also seeing is how can we bring more common operations. So, both their IT operations, what we've learned for many years as VMware on how we can implement a better IT operations we're bringing to the network operations part. You can get the common operational stack with our VCF stack across your network operations and your IT operations. You get the benefits of CNFs and VNFs on the same platform, your OSS BSS applications on the same platforms. That is all about saving money for these operators and providers who are very cost-conscious right now.
Diana Goovaerts:
Awesome. So Sylvain, I heard him mention a lot of different vertical silos within different organizations, and I know Telcos are moving away from that. So, what do they need to move and make that transition away from vertical silos and how does Broadcom help make that transition smooth?
Sylvain Cazard:
I think Paul has been explaining quite a lot of that, and we had key meetings with many of our big clients during the show. So, for sure they look at their platform they can optimize. We believe there is a trend for horizontal platform instead of vertical platforms. Like Paul said, they run as a virtualization platform in IT, now in telco. Of course now they have to capture a new platform, which is the AI platform. So, they give even more justification for going horizontal. So, it's going to be a journey for sure [inaudible 00:02:50]. But, that was most of the conversation we had with the clients. And with our core virtualization platform VCF for both telco workloads and IT workloads, and AI workloads as well, as well as Edge platform. I think we have a good conversation having with clients.
Diana Goovaerts:
So, one of the things I've seen a lot of operators do around AI is partner up. But, AI is not the only thing that they need to partner on. So, talk to me about standardized APIs and how partnerships can change the game for telcos on that front, Paul.
Paul Turner:
Look, partners are critical for us, and they're critical for our customers. You as telco operators, you expect that the network functions are supported on those platforms. So, we work with our partners Nokia, with Ericsson, with NEC, with Samsung, with Mavenir, all of these partner ecosystems, they come out of the box with certified trusted platforms from us. We have implemented this into some of the leading customers in the world, Vodafone, Telia, T-Mobile, BT, SoftBank, and the list goes on. What they need and all of these customers need is a guaranteed, trusted, qualified platform that supports all of their applications, and we provide that. And that's what we hear from customers here is it's really encouraging to come to a show like this.
Diana Goovaerts:
So, one of the things I hear you guys saying is that there are a lot of big changes going on. And AI is certainly one of the ones that's gaining momentum. So Sylvain, talk to me a little bit about how the cloud and telco cloud strategies have to adapt for that AI transformation.
Sylvain Cazard:
Yeah, first, like I said, I think we still early-stage. When you see what has been showing up here at the event, that's one. Our observation as well at VMware is maybe the operators and the telcos, they've been missing the cloud opportunity 10 years ago where they were having a lot in their hands to capture more of what they have been capturing. So, I think, AI is an opportunity for that industry to catch up. To catch up. And, I think, they have a lot of things to say. Sovereignty is a big driver. Things happening at the edge on AI is a big topic as well.
So, they are really having the capacity to recover some of the monetization that they may not have been capturing into the cloud. And again, this is a platform play. If they are setting the right platform and business model, and that's where we are helping them into that space. Yeah, I think they can recover what they may have lost, again, a bit into the cloud world.
Paul Turner:
They're in a-
Sylvain Cazard:
And as well there is interesting discussion here, is AI for a network and network for AI, because not is going to be a new packet, a new capacity going through the telco operator, which are also AI traffic. So, it's very interesting topic, but again, early stage. I'm sure next year at MWC we are going to see much more and hopefully with collaboration we are doing with those guys.
Paul Turner:
Yeah, they're in a unique position, because they own the kind of network and they have a sovereign kind of cloud capability, because they work in region. And that's a unique place where they can actually play with a private AI, a sovereign AI, which I think will be the next thing that we'll really see in every one of these cloud operators.
Diana Goovaerts:
All right, Paul, I'm coming to you for the last question. In 30 seconds or less lightning round. Talk to me a little bit about AI and automation and how telcos are thinking about that in terms of operations, network security. What does that thought process look like?
Paul Turner:
Yeah, so they are looking at both sides as Sylvain said. One is it's a business opportunity for them. And for there, as you look at sovereign private AI, they can actually run a trusted, secure environment for their customers without data transiting across borders and boundaries where you may have some challenges from certain governments. And the second is AI to enhance their operations internally to build more efficient operations. And that's what we're looking at. That's what we build with our telco cloud platform. It's based on VCF. We give you the ability to run private AI infrastructure, but to also optimize your network, your storage, your compute performance so that you can build the most operationally efficient platform possible.
Diana Goovaerts:
All right. Thank you both for your time today.
Paul Turner:
Sure.
Sylvain Cazard:
Thank you.
Paul Turner:
Thank you so much.