AT&T Embraces AI in Open Source

AT&T is throwing the door open to a new AI platform, which is called Acumos, in order to make the technology more accessible to developers.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) announced Acumos at its AT&T Summit Monday morning. AT&T has had AI in the works for a while now, including using it in its SDN-enabled network to continuously predict failures and solve network degradation via "zero touch" automation tools. It's also using AI at the network edge to detect cybersecurity patterns and threats.

But Monday's announcement was about bringing AI into the mainstream. AT&T is working with Tech Mahindra Ltd. to create a marketplace for accessing, using, developing and deploying AI applications. The Acumos platform is hosted as an open source project by the Linux Foundation , which will give the developer community the capability to edit, integrate, compose, package, train and deploy AI microservices.

AI developers and users can chain together different bits and pieces of Acumos to create new, complex AI services and common interfaces. Acumos serves as both a directory for AI modeling and as an ecosystem for connecting and customizing AI use cases.

"Our goal with open sourcing the Acumos platform is to make building and deploying AI applications as easy as creating a website," said Mazin Gilbert, vice president of Advanced Technology at AT&T Labs, in a prepared statement. "We're collaborating with Tech Mahindra to establish an industry standard for AI in the networking space. We invite others to join us to create a global harmonization in AI and set the stage for all future AI network applications and services."

Gilbert is the technical steering committee chair for ONAP, which is another open source project hosted by the Linux Foundation. Like ONAP, Acumos will benefit from a large developer community that will help fuel the progress of the AI platform.

"Our investment in AI solutions over the past few years is helping us find tremendous opportunity to make it simpler for higher adoption,” said Raman Abrol, senior vice president and strategic business unit head at Tech Mahindra, in the press release. "In collaboration with AT&T, we will help enable enterprises apply AI to re-imagine business models, unlock the potential of data and drive business outcomes. Our ultimate goal with the Acumos Project is to accelerate and industrialize the deployment of AI at enterprises and get developers and businesses to collaborate effectively in order to improve how we all live, work and play."

— Mike Robuck, Editor, Telco Transformation