AI First! It is time to adjust your strategy

Telekom Innovation Laboratories

Telekom Innovation Laboratories (T-Labs) are the research & development unit of Deutsche Telekom. We are an international group of experts and scientists with a shared passion for innovation and technology in the three core fields of blockchain, intelligence and experience. In close partnership with our academic partners, start-ups or research institutes we jointly shape the future of our industry.

With our work, we aspire to strengthen Deutsche Telekom’s position as leading telco for the future. We support, challenge and disrupt the business at the intersection between research and development. Our focus is on emerging trends and new technologies that are typically 3-5 years from business operations.

 T-Labs #Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is such a disruptive topic that brings great potential across many fields of the telecommunications business. Our innovation projects try to identify, prove and leverage these benefits. Our vision for the future: AI first!

More specifically, we concentrate our activities on four core focus areas:

Sustainability AI: This is our latest focus area, where we apply AI methods towards a more sustainable way of doing business. This includes projects in energy efficiency, smart grid technology or the optimization of urban elements like traffic or pollution in the context of smart cities.

Quantum AI: We bring out the potential of quantum computing technology to excel machine learning, artificial intelligence and optimization solutions across our business, and participate in public research programs to shape the development and application of Quantum Computing.

Cyber Security AI: We help to secure our customers as well as the core of our business: our network. We leverage new artificial intelligence and machine learning paradigms to identify and prevent attacks.

AI Foundry: Our quick response team can transfer AI technology into the company wherever smart solutions are needed urgently.

We are proud of what we have achieved with our team in these fields, and are looking forward to our program for 2020.

Some of my personal highlights were:

·      With our research on Quantum Computing we are at the forefront of future developments within Deutsche Telekom. We are already applying Quantum methods in real business use case, together with industry partners makes (see Fujitsu Forum 2019 keynote).

·      Our expertise enables us to implement new products and services in cooperation with internal departments and pilot customers. For our work on an integrated infrastructure for the manufacturing industry, we were nominated as finalist for the best use of data science/AI for industry 4.0 within the Data Science Awards 2019.

·      We prove benefits from the combination of new technologies for practical application like AI, 5G and EDGE computing, as with 5G Reflex (see “5G Reflex at MWC Barcelona”, “DREWAG Smart Grid”).

·      Finally, our research and exploration activities also lead to a number of patents and publications every year (see Bitkom article on adversarial AI), as well as contributions to public research consortiums (see PlanQK consortium), to contribute towards sustainability and responsibility of technological developments.