In March 2024, a massive undersea cable outage affected the West African coast, disabling the WACS, MainOne, SAT-3 and ACE systems. This incident left 13 countries with widespread internet outages, and disruptions to telecoms and banking services as well as the daily lives of citizens. It took weeks to fully restore access, illustrating the fragility of global telecoms infrastructure. These failures show the urgent need for AI-driven, autonomous and self-healing networks that can respond in real-time. The Moonshot Catalyst, AI-driven network automation for traffic and service resilience – Phase II (25.0.821), was built to address exactly this challenge.
George Malim, the managing editor of Agile Telco caught up with the participants to understand the main challenges the Moonshot Catalyst seeks to address and to report on progress to date.
The Moonshot Catalyst participants:
- Delfi Gunardy, Catalyst Project; project lead and manager of Connectivity & Internet Based Platform O&M at Telin (PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia International)
- Andreas Polz, the senior vice president of Technology, Innovation & Standards and chief evangelist at Beyond Now
- Dr. David Hock, Catalyst Project; technical lead and director of research at Infosim
- Kenichi Tayama, a senior research engineer at NTT
- Nicole Schroeder, Catalyst Project; marketing lead and head of marketing at Tallence
George Malim: Nicole, from a market and messaging perspective, why is this Catalyst so relevant right now?
Nicole Schroeder: We’re at an inflection point. The global telecoms sector is under immense pressure – from customers demanding seamless digital experiences to governments pushing for resilient, sovereign infrastructure. When events like the West African cable break in 2024 or Spain’s internet outage in May this year dominate headlines, it becomes crystal clear: this isn’t just about connectivity anymore – it’s about continuity, inclusion and economic stability.
The Moonshot Catalyst was designed to be timely and tangible. It doesn’t live in a sandbox; it lives in reality – with real AI, real monetisation logic and real network exposure. Our goal from a go-to market standpoint was to showcase a complete and compelling solution that not only works, but can be communicated to telco execs, partners and verticals in their own language – whether that’s ROI, resilience or reach.
We didn’t just want to prove the tech – we wanted to help telcos tell a new story: one where AI-native networks don’t just fix problems, they become growth platforms.”
“The global telecoms sector is under immense pressure – from customers demanding seamless digital experiences to governments pushing for resilient, sovereign infrastructure”
GM: Tayama-san, what does technical autonomy truly mean, and how is it achieved in your Catalyst?
Kenichi Tayama: To us, autonomy means more than just reacting fast. It means building a living network – one that observes, learns, predicts and corrects itself without human intervention. In the Moonshot Catalyst, this is driven by three core layers:
- GenAI-powered intent translation – operators state goals in natural language and our agents convert these into structured configurations and back to recommendation.
- Real-time telemetry ingestion – across domains, analysed to detect anomalies, capacity shifts or service level agreement (SLA) drift.
- Digital twin simulation – we test changes in virtual models with operations provided by a large language model (LLM) agent before executing them live.
This triad forms a continuous, intelligent feedback loop. Every event – planned or unplanned – becomes an opportunity for learning and improvement. And because we anchor all of this in TM Forum Open APIs and the Open Digital Architecture (ODA), what we’ve built is replicable, interoperable and future-proof.
This project marks a pivotal shift in network operations – from automatic responses to disruptions to autonomous responses, and from network-oriented to customer-oriented responses. By integrating generative AI, agent AI and intent-based orchestration, we’re setting a new benchmark for autonomous networks. For NTT, this isn’t just innovation – it’s leadership in delivering zero-touch, resilient connectivity for tomorrow’s digital world.”
Our Catalyst doesn’t just automate tasks – it shows how the entire telco stack can be elevated to a level where machine intelligence and human intent converge. That’s the real meaning of autonomy.
GM: David, What’s the architecture behind your solution, and how does it operate across real-time, multi-vendor environments?
Dr. David Hock: Our architecture is cloud-neutral and completely modular. Some components are built Kubernetes-native. That means the solution can scale from a single telco deployment to a global, multi-tenant marketplace.
We use Infosim’s inventory and assurance engine to continuously collect and process infrastructure data – from core to edge. This feeds our AI models, running on GPU accelerated infrastructure from NTT, and connects to a real-time orchestration layer. Our orchestration flows span from IP-layer rerouting to intent-to-policy translation and even energy optimisation.
What brings this solution close to production-readiness is its interoperability. We integrate with Shabodi’s NetAware API layer to abstract programmable services, enforce SLA policies, and manage inter-domain automation. It’s not just about automation – it’s about trust, traceability and observability across every action the system takes.
I believe that AI can greatly assist in the automation and optimisation of sustainable enterprise and help bring positive change to current environmental challenges. We at Infosim share TM Forum’s long-standing commitment to the investigation and application of innovative technological solutions to real-world problems. I am proud of the many collaborative efforts that my esteemed colleagues across the globe and I have made with our catalysts.
That spirit of collaboration is what powers this Catalyst. It’s not about one company – it’s about a multi-partner ecosystem, working with shared standards and aligned visions. Together, we’ve built a system that’s not just technically elegant – it’s environmentally conscious, operationally scalable and ready for commercial impact.
GM: Delfi, as an operator, how do you ensure this Catalyst delivers in the real world – not just in labs?
Delfi Gunardy: We designed this Catalyst around real operational chaos. At Telin, we operate one of the largest subsea networks in the Asia-Pacific, spanning over 250,000km. Our infrastructure includes key trans-Pacific and intercontinental systems, reinforcing Telin’s role as a global connectivity leader. Constraints like intermittent fibre, inconsistent power and dynamic user loads are everyday challenges. That’s why our Catalyst had to work across fibre break simulations, energy-saving modes and regional policy constraints.
We evaluated outcomes not just in terms of uptime, but resilience and customer continuity. One of our most important metrics was mean time to predict, not just to respond. In several real-world scenarios, our system identified anomalies minutes to hours before traditional tools, enabling preemptive traffic rerouting, dynamic prioritisation and even end-user experience preservation.
What makes the solution powerful is its local adaptability. Our intent layer respects regional SLAs, commercial priorities and energy policies. For example, Jakarta’s emergency services traffic can be prioritised differently than Accra’s rural connectivity rollout – all from the same orchestration fabric.
In today’s hyperconnected world, network disruptions impact not just services but entire economies and communities. With our Moonshot Catalyst, we are leading the way in proactive, AI-powered network automation that prevents outages before customers are even affected.
The extraordinary collaboration between global telco and technology leaders proves what’s possible when we unite behind a shared vision of resilient, autonomous infrastructure.”
For me, this Catalyst is proof that autonomy isn’t just a technology goal – it’s a human and societal commitment. When networks become predictive, we don’t just save downtime – we protect economies, healthcare, education and every digital thread that society relies on.
“In today’s hyperconnected world, network disruptions impact not just services but entire economies and communities”
GM: Andreas, how does your Catalyst unlock new business and monetisation models?
Andreas Polz: Networks have always been monetised passively – capacity, coverage and minutes. What we’ve built with this Catalyst is a foundation for profit in a B2B2X world. Through our Beyond Now Digital Business Platform and Digital Marketplace, telcos can now expose network capabilities as revenue-generating services – combined with vertical solutions and partner offerings.
This includes:
- Intent-based SLAs exposed via APIs – across suppliers and markets
- Real-time QoS adjustments as a service
- Usage-based offers for vertical partners (for example, in logistics, media and automotive)
- Federated catalogues that combine network, cloud and partner assets
This platform approach allows telecoms operators to shift from capex-heavy wholesalers to agile service brokers. They can onboard partners, expose differentiated offers and monetise agility – not just bandwidth. And because it’s fully aligned with TM Forum standards and CAMARA APIs, it integrates seamlessly into the wider ecosystem including developer engagement.
George Malim 