Last month, Amdocs and NVIDIA announced a strategic collaboration aimed at optimising LLMs to accelerate the adoption of generative AI applications in the telecommunications and media industries, which form a whopping $1.7 trillion market. 

Amdocs specialises in software and services for various industries, including communications, media, financial services, and digital enterprises, to manage customer information, billing, support, and data analysis effectively. 

This partnership entails the customisation of enterprise-grade LLMs using NVIDIA accelerated computing, all within Amdocs’ amAIz a generative AI framework for telcos, which it launched earlier this year in June. By joining forces, the two companies aim to empower communications service providers to efficiently integrate generative AI use cases across their operations, from enhancing customer experiences to optimising network provisioning.

Amdocs will leverage the powerful capabilities of NVIDIA DGX Cloud AI supercomputing and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software. This collaboration aligns with Amdocs’ strategy to advance AI use cases in the industry, building on their Microsoft partnership. It ensures secure adoption in on-site or cloud environments for service providers and media companies.

The company boasts a customer of 350 leading companies, including 27 of the world’s top 30 service providers—like AT&T Mobile, Vodafone, Airtel, Infosys, Fujitsu, Verizon, Telefonica, amongst others facilitating over 1.7 billion daily digital journeys, impacting over 3 billion people globally.

In a recent conversation with AIM, Anthony Goonetilleke, Group President of Technology and Head of Strategy at Amdocs, provided insights into their approach saying, “There’s no technology that’s moving as fast. So it was very very critical to us to form strategic partnerships.” 

This is the second such partnership with a tech giant. The first one was with Microsoft, which enables them to use products from OpenAI because both companies are synonymous and run on Azure Cloud.

“The second partner we wanted to work with was Nvidia for multiple reasons. They have the best infrastructure in the market for GenAI GPUs. But second, it allows us the freedom to run on AWS if one of our customers demands—and third, they are helping us accelerate telco verticals capabilities,” explained Goonetilleke.

These partnerships are also critical as telcos have been experiencing shrinking revenues. To deal with it they are diversifying their verticals into home automation, connected healthcare and industrial IoT.

For this, they must move from legacy OSS/BSS systems to a composable, cloud-native architecture, enabling them to integrate AI software and personalise customer experiences, without needing heavy customisation and lengthy migrations.

Role of Generative AI in Telecom

Amdocs is actively working to integrate generative AI into their products and services, enabling quicker responses to customer needs and reducing the time to market for their solutions. For example, their CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) platform leverages generative AI to significantly reduce the time it takes to deliver proposals to customers from months to days.

Another application of generative AI is in catalogue management, where Amdocs aims to simplify product creation and customisation. Users can generate multiple product options by simply describing their requirements, dramatically increasing efficiency.

“I can type it in English, and NLP will translate it into the inventory and look at available systems. I can have 70% of the proposal created right before you,” he said. 

Adding that, “Right then, you can verify it, and then within a week, I can have you know the install date for you.”

He explained that even if a client is in need of a 5G package in Delhi that targets millennials interested in the Cricket World Cup it has become easy and efficient with the use of external data sources. Previously, it required extensive research and knowledge of the system’s components. Now, you can simply input your preferences, quickly generate multiple options, fine-tune your choice, and launch it to the market.

Resource Utilisation and AI Democratisation

The company also recognises the resource-intensive nature of AI, particularly in terms of power consumption.  The amAIz framework optimises the use of tokens efficiently without manual input. It uses vector databases, caching, and various techniques to maximise token utilisation. This ensures transparency in token allocation and cost management and prevents unexpected billing surprises, offering added value to users.

“This way, you’re not going to get a surprise at the end of the month to have this huge bill that no one expected suddenly.”

Goonetilleke also expressed enthusiasm about democratising AI technologies, emphasising that individuals worldwide now have access to the same powerful tools and resources as established tech hubs. 

However, Amdocs is not the only player striving to meet the specific GenAI requirements of telcos. Some telecom operators are collaborating to build a model shared under the Global Telco AI Alliance, with two telcos involved in that body, SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, having recently announced progress. 

Additionally, companies like Netcracker Technologies, in partnership with Google Cloud and Tech Mahindra, leverage their industry knowledge to cater to GenAI’s needs. However, with its Azure cloud expertise, the triumvirate of Amdocs, NVIDIA, and Microsoft presents a particularly formidable combination poised to shape the future of telecom generative AI. As these industry leaders unite their strengths, the telecom sector can anticipate a new era of innovation and transformative solutions.