Large-Scale AI in Telecom: Charting the Roadmap for Innovation, Scalability, and Enhanced Digital Experiences

This white paper discusses the role of large-scale AI in the telecommunications industry, with a specific focus on the potential of generative AI to revolutionize network functions and user experiences, especially in the context of 6G systems. It highlights the development and deployment of Large Telecom Models (LTMs), which are tailored AI models designed to address the complex challenges faced by modern telecom networks. The paper covers a wide range of topics, from the architecture and deployment strategies of LTMs to their applications in network management, resource allocation, and optimization. It also explores the regulatory, ethical, and standardization considerations for LTMs, offering insights into their future integration into telecom infrastructure. The goal is to provide a comprehensive roadmap for the adoption of LTMs to enhance scalability, performance, and user-centric innovation in telecom networks.

Joint Holographic Beamforming and User Scheduling with Individual QoS Constraints

Reconfigurable holographic surfaces (RHS) have emerged as a transformative material technology, enabling dynamic control of electromagnetic waves to generate versatile holographic beam patterns. This paper addresses the problem of joint hybrid holographic beamforming and user scheduling under per-user minimum quality-of-service (QoS) constraints, a critical challenge in resource-constrained networks. However, such a problem results in mixed-integer non-convex optimization, making it difficult to identify feasible solutions efficiently. To overcome this challenge, we propose a novel iterative optimization framework that jointly solves the problem to maximize the RHS-assisted network sum-rate, efficiently managing holographic beamforming patterns, dynamically scheduling users, and ensuring the minimum QoS requirements for each scheduled user. The proposed framework relies on zero-forcing digital beamforming, gradient-ascent-based holographic beamformer optimization, and a greedy user selection principle. Our extensive simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, demonstrating their superior performance compared to the benchmark algorithms in terms of sum-rate performance, while meeting the minimum per-user QoS constraints

Joint Beamforming and 3D Location Optimization for Multi-User Holographic UAV Communications

This paper pioneers the field of multi-user holographic unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications, laying a solid foundation for future innovations in next-generation aerial wireless networks. The study focuses on the challenging problem of jointly optimizing hybrid holographic beamforming and 3D UAV positioning in scenarios where the UAV is equipped with a reconfigurable holographic surface (RHS) instead of conventional phased array antennas. Using the unique capabilities of RHSs, the system dynamically adjusts both the position of the UAV and its hybrid beamforming properties to maximize the sum rate of the network. To address this complex optimization problem, we propose an iterative algorithm combining zero-forcing digital beamforming and a gradient ascent approach for the holographic patterns and the 3D position optimization, while ensuring practical feasibility constraints. The algorithm is designed to effectively balance the trade-offs between power, beamforming, and UAV trajectory constraints, enabling adaptive and efficient communications, while assuring a monotonic increase in the sum-rate performance. Our numerical investigations demonstrate that the significant performance improvements with the proposed approach over the benchmark methods, showcasing enhanced sum rate and system adaptability under varying conditions.

DMWM: Dual-Mind World Model with Long-Term Imagination

Imagination in world models is crucial for enabling agents to learn long-horizon policy in a sample-efficient manner. Existing recurrent state-space model (RSSM)-based world models depend on single-step statistical inference to capture the environment dynamics, and, hence, they are unable to perform long-term imagination tasks due to the accumulation of prediction errors. Inspired by the dual-process theory of human cognition, we propose a novel dual-mind world model (DMWM) framework that integrates logical reasoning to enable imagination with logical consistency. DMWM is composed of two components: an RSSM-based System 1 (RSSM-S1) component that handles state transitions in an intuitive manner and a logic-integrated neural network-based System 2 (LINN-S2) component that guides the imagination process through hierarchical deep logical reasoning. The inter-system feedback mechanism is designed to ensure that the imagination process follows the logical rules of the real environment. The proposed framework is evaluated on benchmark tasks that require long-term planning from the DMControl suite. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed framework yields significant improvements in terms of logical coherence, trial efficiency, data efficiency and long-term imagination over the state-of-the-art world models.

Placement, Orientation, and Resource Allocation Optimization for Cell-Free OIRS-aided OWC Network

The emergence of optical intelligent reflecting surface (OIRS) technologies marks a milestone in optical wireless communication (OWC) systems, enabling enhanced control over light propagation in indoor environments. This capability allows for the customization of channel conditions to achieve specific performance goals. This paper presents an enhancement in downlink cell-free OWC networks through the integration of OIRS. The key focus is on fine-tuning crucial parameters, including transmit power, receiver orientations, OIRS elements allocation, and strategic placement. In particular, a multi-objective optimization problem (MOOP) aimed at simultaneously improving the network's spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE) while adhering to the network's quality of service (QoS) constraints is formulated. The problem is solved by employing the $\epsilon$-constraint method to convert the MOOP into a single-objective optimization problem and solving it through successive convex approximation. Simulation results show the significant impact of OIRS on SE and EE, confirming its effectiveness in improving OWC network performance.

SCoTT: Wireless-Aware Path Planning with Vision Language Models and Strategic Chains-of-Thought

Path planning is a complex problem for many practical applications, particularly in robotics. Existing algorithms, however, are exhaustive in nature and become increasingly complex when additional side constraints are incorporated alongside distance minimization. In this paper, a novel approach using vision language models (VLMs) is proposed for enabling path planning in complex wireless-aware environments. To this end, insights from a digital twin (DT) with real-world wireless ray tracing data are explored in order to guarantee an average path gain threshold while minimizing the trajectory length. First, traditional approaches such as A* are compared to several wireless-aware extensions, and an optimal iterative dynamic programming approach (DP-WA*) is derived, which fully takes into account all path gains and distance metrics within the DT. On the basis of these baselines, the role of VLMs as an alternative assistant for path planning is investigated, and a strategic chain-of-thought tasking (SCoTT) approach is proposed. SCoTT divides the complex planning task into several subproblems and solves each with advanced CoT prompting. Results show that SCoTT achieves very close average path gains compared to DP-WA* while at the same time yielding consistently shorter path lengths. The results also show that VLMs can be used to accelerate DP-WA* by efficiently reducing the algorithm's search space and thus saving up to 62\% in execution time. This work underscores the potential of VLMs in future digital systems as capable assistants for solving complex tasks, while enhancing user interaction and accelerating rapid prototyping under diverse wireless constraints.

R-MTLLMF: Resilient Multi-Task Large Language Model Fusion at the Wireless Edge

Multi-task large language models (MTLLMs) are important for many applications at the wireless edge, where users demand specialized models to handle multiple tasks efficiently. However, training MTLLMs is complex and exhaustive, particularly when tasks are subject to change. Recently, the concept of model fusion via task vectors has emerged as an efficient approach for combining fine-tuning parameters to produce an MTLLM. In this paper, the problem of enabling edge users to collaboratively craft such MTTLMs via tasks vectors is studied, under the assumption of worst-case adversarial attacks. To this end, first the influence of adversarial noise to multi-task model fusion is investigated and a relationship between the so-called weight disentanglement error and the mean squared error (MSE) is derived. Using hypothesis testing, it is directly shown that the MSE increases interference between task vectors, thereby rendering model fusion ineffective. Then, a novel resilient MTLLM fusion (R-MTLLMF) is proposed, which leverages insights about the LLM architecture and fine-tuning process to safeguard task vector aggregation under adversarial noise by realigning the MTLLM. The proposed R-MTLLMF is then compared for both worst-case and ideal transmission scenarios to study the impact of the wireless channel. Extensive model fusion experiments with vision LLMs demonstrate R-MTLLMF's effectiveness, achieving close-to-baseline performance across eight different tasks in ideal noise scenarios and significantly outperforming unprotected model fusion in worst-case scenarios. The results further advocate for additional physical layer protection for a holistic approach to resilience, from both a wireless and LLM perspective.

Induced Covariance for Causal Discovery in Linear Sparse Structures

Causal models seek to unravel the cause-effect relationships among variables from observed data, as opposed to mere mappings among them, as traditional regression models do. This paper introduces a novel causal discovery algorithm designed for settings in which variables exhibit linearly sparse relationships. In such scenarios, the causal links represented by directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) can be encapsulated in a structural matrix. The proposed approach leverages the structural matrix's ability to reconstruct data and the statistical properties it imposes on the data to identify the correct structural matrix. This method does not rely on independence tests or graph fitting procedures, making it suitable for scenarios with limited training data. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the well-known PC, GES, BIC exact search, and LINGAM-based methods in recovering linearly sparse causal structures.

Enhancing Spectrum Efficiency in 6G Satellite Networks: A GAIL-Powered Policy Learning via Asynchronous Federated Inverse Reinforcement Learning

In this paper, a novel generative adversarial imitation learning (GAIL)-powered policy learning approach is proposed for optimizing beamforming, spectrum allocation, and remote user equipment (RUE) association in NTNs. Traditional reinforcement learning (RL) methods for wireless network optimization often rely on manually designed reward functions, which can require extensive parameter tuning. To overcome these limitations, we employ inverse RL (IRL), specifically leveraging the GAIL framework, to automatically learn reward functions without manual design. We augment this framework with an asynchronous federated learning approach, enabling decentralized multi-satellite systems to collaboratively derive optimal policies. The proposed method aims to maximize spectrum efficiency (SE) while meeting minimum information rate requirements for RUEs. To address the non-convex, NP-hard nature of this problem, we combine the many-to-one matching theory with a multi-agent asynchronous federated IRL (MA-AFIRL) framework. This allows agents to learn through asynchronous environmental interactions, improving training efficiency and scalability. The expert policy is generated using the Whale optimization algorithm (WOA), providing data to train the automatic reward function within GAIL. Simulation results show that the proposed MA-AFIRL method outperforms traditional RL approaches, achieving a $14.6\%$ improvement in convergence and reward value. The novel GAIL-driven policy learning establishes a novel benchmark for 6G NTN optimization.

Hypergame Theory for Decentralized Resource Allocation in Multi-user Semantic Communications

Semantic communications (SC) is an emerging communication paradigm in which wireless devices can send only relevant information from a source of data while relying on computing resources to regenerate missing data points. However, the design of a multi-user SC system becomes more challenging because of the computing and communication overhead required for coordination. Existing solutions for learning the semantic language and performing resource allocation often fail to capture the computing and communication tradeoffs involved in multiuser SC. To address this gap, a novel framework for decentralized computing and communication resource allocation in multiuser SC systems is proposed. The challenge of efficiently allocating communication and computing resources (for reasoning) in a decentralized manner to maximize the quality of task experience for the end users is addressed through the application of Stackelberg hyper game theory. Leveraging the concept of second-level hyper games, novel analytical formulations are developed to model misperceptions of the users about each other's communication and control strategies. Further, equilibrium analysis of the learned resource allocation protocols examines the convergence of the computing and communication strategies to a local Stackelberg equilibria, considering misperceptions. Simulation results show that the proposed Stackelberg hyper game results in efficient usage of communication and computing resources while maintaining a high quality of experience for the users compared to state-of-the-art that does not account for the misperceptions.