Telstra International has unveiled plans to enhance its infrastructure to create a “highly autonomous network” by the end of the decade, leveraging AI technologies and digital twins.
The project will see Telstra International augment its subsea cable network to support more than 800 Terabits per second (Tbps) of total lit capacity and use built-in AI technologies to monitor network performance.
Telstra’s global arm brought in optical technology from Infinera and Ciena to upgrade its network, while legacy platforms are being replaced with network inventory and management systems from Blue Planet.
The company said the network overhaul will meet increasing customers’ bandwidth consumption and data centre demands across key routes including intra-Asia, Transpacific, and Asia to Australia.
Roary Stasko, CEO of Telstra International, said: “We expect to see traffic grow at a much faster rate, at least three times by 2030, with the development of AI which drives the need for more capacity and a network that covers vast areas of society.
“To deliver this, we need a step change. We are transforming our network at all layers and innovating with strategic partners to apply the principles of virtualised and cloud technologies to the network.”
Over the next five years, Telstra International will add AI, machine learning, and cognitive computing to support network self-management and standard-based APIs to simplify interoperability.
Infinera will provide solutions to “cloudify” Telstra’s infrastructure layer with decoupled software and hardware which the company said would “significantly increase the available subsea and backhaul capacity with greater flexibility”.
The operator will also create a digital twin of its network, enabling it to monitor and simulate network operations in real-time.
“By 2030 we will have built a highly autonomous network able to detect underutilised routes and turn capacity up or down or respond to changes or detect vulnerabilities such as temperature levels and move traffic off those to avoid outages,” said Stasko. “AI and machine learning give us the opportunity to strengthen our network defence. Underpinning this technology is our people who develop the models and patterns that drive AI and machine learning.”
Telstra International’s AI overhaul mirrors its telco counterpart, which is working with Accenture to develop specialised agentic AI tools to augment its operations.
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Ben Wodecki benjamin.wodecki@capacitymedia.com
