What role does AI research play in the future of telecoms?

Derek Collins of Huawei Ireland thinks that the global research landscape will have to evolve as humans begin to demand better technologies and ‘dare to dream’.

“Translating technology strategy into a roadmap is a challenging exercise,” says Derek Collins, who heads industry engagement and research collaboration at Huawei in Ireland.

“This is where we need the help of academia and the vibrant start-up community, across Ireland and the wider European community, to bridge these gaps in innovative thinking.”

Collins has two decades of experience in the world of ICT and research and development, having worked at some of the world’s leading telecom companies such as Nortel and BT across the US, Asia and Europe. For the past decade, he has been working with Huawei, helping the company build an R&D roadmap the drives new product development.

Headquartered in Shenzhen, a sprawling metropolis in southern China, Huawei is one of the world’s leading makers of communications equipment and a strong regional player in the consumer electronics space.

It has a strong research presence in Ireland, collaborating with many Irish universities and Science Foundation Ireland institutes. Some of these areas of research include software, gaming, artificial intelligence, 6G networking and cloud computing.

According to the 2023 edition of the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard, Huawei is among the top five global companies that made the highest R&D investments in 2022. Last year, the company invested €20.8bn in R&D, representing 23.4pc of its total revenue.

The company has also been seeing a huge growth in its sales and profits since last year as it bounced back after years of underwhelming earnings amid regulatory turbulence from the US.

‘Research will have to evolve’

Now, Collins and his team are working towards engaging with Ireland’s research community to identify a strategic fit that can enhance its research agenda.

“There is an abundance of world’s leading talent in Ireland, and we want to work with key innovative thinkers, to bolster and test our ideas. Another part of my role is to identify key technology breakthroughs and inventions, and to marry this critical thinking to longer timelines and find investment opportunities, to plan for the near- and long-term future,” he says.

“What does the mobile phone look like in 20 years’ time? And what impacts will AI have on medtech? What is the future of mathematics? My role also entails talent cultivation and managing the partner ecosystem, and finding key resources that might to join this journey.”

Derek Collins. Image: Huawei

Collins argues that we find ourselves in an interesting era as we rapidly enter an age of what he calls “all intelligence” with the advancement of AI.

“The research landscape will have to evolve, as humans will demand better healthcare, drug and vaccine design curiosity, and dare to dream. The advent of robotics, from service to production, ability to perceive and take action. The environment will change research forever: green and renewable energy, low-carbon cities, etc.”

But along with an advancement in AI will come challenges such as hallucinations and cognitive bias in visual processing.

“Deep neural networks are brilliant at image recognition while convolutional neural networks can be misled by small, imperceptible perturbations,” Collins explains. “Another challenge is that machines outperform human brains in computing, but they are energy-inefficient and costly. Models with hundreds of trillions of parameters require gigawatt-level data centres.”

And while so-called “AI doomers” are sounding the alarm on the impending AI apocalypse, Collins says business leaders are more concerned about AI leaking sensitive data.

“I feel organisations should focus skillsets on responsible AI. The rise of LLMs [large language models] has led to distinct security concerns that warrant dedicated solutions. For LLM app developers, prompt injection attacks pose AI security and safety concerns, and this environment will challenge skills.”

Future of telecoms

When it comes to telecommunications, the future of the sector is “intrinsically linked” with AI research, according to Collins, and the advancement of this domain will have “profound consequences” for the likes of Huawei.

“AI looms large on carrier service providers’ priority lists, and customer experience and customer-facing engagements are AI target. Some attributes will become AI powered, such as investing in AI and machine learning to support operations, investing in new tools to improve customer experience and automating operations or processes.”

For Collins, challenges to the future of R&D globally will centre around questions some key questions: “How do machines perceive the world? Can we build models that teach machines how to understand the world? How can we better understand the physiological mechanisms of the human body, as well as human intent and intelligence?”

These questions will help us develop new sensing and control capabilities such as brain-computer interfaces, 3D displays, virtual touch, smell and taste, etc.

Other advancements Collins thinks are on their way include real-time blood pressure, blood sugar and heart monitoring; strong AI-assisted discoveries in chemical pharmaceuticals, biopharmaceuticals, and vaccines; safe, and efficient energy conversion and storage. “The future is not what it used to be.”

Find out how emerging tech trends are transforming tomorrow with our new podcast, Future Human: The Series. Listen now on Spotify, on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.