Keynote: Redesigning Networks for AI Workloads Presented by BT
Colin Bannon, CTO of BT, will delve into the necessary changes in networking to support AI workloads. His keynote will address how AI is influencing network topologies, requiring increased capacities and more sophisticated data management solutions. Colin will share insights on the fundamental redesign of network infrastructure needed to support both AI and existing workloads, highlighting the challenges and opportunities that come with this transformation.
Colin’s presentation will focus on the practical aspects of network redesign, including the adoption of new technologies, the integration of AI-driven automation, and the strategic planning required to future-proof network infrastructures. His insights will be invaluable for organizations looking to adapt their networks to meet the demands of AI.
Keynote outline:
Analogy: Will use the dot.com bubble burst to compare and contrast with the current race to AI
Keynote will focus on:
– NaaS plus AI
– AI’s unknown impact
– Edge: a prime location
– Speaking up – lack of appreciation of the value of the network
Who Should Attend:
-Network engineers and architects
-IT infrastructure managers
-AI and data management professionals
-Business strategists and planners
-Technology innovators
What You Will Learn:
-How AI impacts network topologies and capacities.
-Best practices for data management in AI-driven networks.
-Strategies for redesigning network infrastructure to support AI.
-Challenges and solutions in integrating AI with existing network workloads.
Colin Bannon is BT Business’ chief technology officer (CTO), charged with delivering its product
technology strategy and designing solutions enabling strategic outcomes for more than one million
businesses in the UK and 1,000 multinational enterprises in over 180 countries globally.
BT’s customers include world-leading brands, government and financial services organisations, as
well as domestic UK small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) and public sector organisations,
including defence and health. BT also provides wholesale products and services to other
telecommunication companies in the UK and internationally.
Colin is the architect of some of the largest customer network transformations in the world, including
BT’s own enterprise network. In addition, he’s BT Business’ technology lead for partners including
hyperscalers, networking equipment vendors and carrier neutral facility (CNF) providers.
His latest project, Global Fabric, is BT’s new, transformative network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform.
This is a full re-platforming and digitisation of BT’s entire global network footprint, services and
partner integrations for business customers. The industry-disrupting concept was incubated in the
CTO team under Colin and is one of the biggest programmes BT has pursued.
Global Fabric, a fully digitalised, automated, API-first platform, will offer customers near-instant
control to set up, change and scale connectivity services, including Internet, MPLS, Ethernet, Cloud
interconnectivity, DC Interconnect, mobile Interconnect, data sovereignty, DDoS, edge compute that
supports service insertion such as SD-WAN and SASE, SSE, SIP, load balancing, and firewalls.
Colin is active across the telecommunications industry and academia, holding a seat on the Metro
Ethernet Forum (MEF) and lecturing at Warwick University. In addition to his 20 years at BT Group,
including roles such as chief architect, Colin has held engineering leadership and consulting
engineer positions at IBM, Lucent INS and Unisys.
