PRESS RELEASE: TIP launches new Data & AI Foundations Project Group
- Telecom Infra Project
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Today, the Telecom Infra Project, a global industry trade association, announces today the official launch of its latest Project Group, Data & AI Foundations, with founding Co-Chairs from AT&T, AWS, Orange, Telefónica, and with expectations of other community members following swiftly after.
This new industry-wide initiative is designed to accelerate the shift toward AI‑Native Networks and establish the foundational data, model, and intelligence infrastructure required for the 6G era and advanced networks of today.
The Project Group will develop a comprehensive, cross‑domain Data and AI framework that enables operators, vendors, and ecosystem partners to build, train, and operationalize Network Language Models (NLMs) across Radio Access, Transport, Fixed Access, Wi‑Fi, and Core networks. This framework provides the semantic and architectural backbone needed to scale AI‑driven automation, optimization, and decision‑making across heterogeneous telecom environments.
At the center of this effort is a secure, multi‑provider federated learning architecture that allows organizations to collaboratively train domain‑specialized NLMs while preserving privacy, data sovereignty, and trust. The group will focus on NLMs, AI agents, datasets, and supporting artifacts that address real operator use cases—from network design and planning to diagnostics, optimization, and autonomous operations.
Operating horizontally across all TIP Project Groups, Data & AI Foundations will harmonize use cases & requirements, align data frameworks, and define best practices for secure data handling, model customization, benchmarking, and production readiness.
The Project Group’s roadmap includes:
Curating domain‑specific datasets to enable specialized NLMs
Developing telecom‑specific NLMs, AI agents, and production‑ready artifacts
Designing a cross‑domain Data & AI framework for multi‑provider networks
Establishing best practices for model customization and deployment
Building secure federated learning architectures for NLM collaboration
Defining frameworks for security, agent decision‑making, benchmarking, scalability, and interoperability
Perspectives from Telecom Infra Project's Leadership and Founding Project Group Members
“Creating an innovation marketplace for Network Language Models is how we give the industry a shared semantic backbone—a true lingua franca for networks. When models, agents, and data can speak the same language, we unlock a new era of intelligence, interoperability, and scalable AI‑native networks.” -Kaniz Mahdi, Director of Technology at AWS Industries
“It is now widely recognized that AI will have a significant impact on our networks, enabling us to deliver a better customer experience through more resilient and efficient infrastructures. However, access to network data remains a key challenge... Standardized mechanisms for data access, together with secure and effective approaches for training AI models on network data, are essential foundations for the successful adoption of AI in networks. This is why we are driving the creation of a new Data & AI Foundations Project Group within TIP.”
-Cayetano Carbajo Martin, Director for Core, Transport and Service Platforms at Telefónica Group “Building on years of research and deployment in AI for networks, Orange is now part of the new Data and AI Foundations Project Group within TIP.”
– Laurent Leboucher, Orange Group CTO and EVP Networks
“The Data and AI Foundations Project Group is an important addition to TIP’s ongoing AI strategy..."
– Kristian Toivo, Executive Director, TIP
###
About the Telecom Infra Project
The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) is a global community of companies and organizations that are driving infrastructure solutions to advance global connectivity. Founded in 2016, TIP is a community of diverse participants that includes hundreds of companies – from telecom operators and technology partners including OEMs, chipset manufacturers, vendors, hyperscalers, system integrators and other connectivity stakeholders. The community collectively is redefining network technology by developing, testing and promoting standards based, open, disaggregated, autonomous, cloud-native, AI-driven solutions. These solutions when deployed will deliver the high-quality connectivity that the world needs – now and in the decades to come. Find out more by visiting www.telecominfraproject.com.
Media Contacts:
Telecom Infra Project, Inc.
Global Corporate Communications Department
