Ye Ouyang, PhD, is the Chief Technology Officer and Senior VP at AsiaInfo Technologies, a global leading provider of telecom software and services. He spearheads research, development, and innovation for the company’s products and technology. Ouyang was just selected as an IEEE Fellow, one of the most prestigious awards in the field. This distinction is reserved for select IEEE members whose extraordinary accomplishments have contributed to the advancement or application of engineering, science, and technology.
Ouyang completed the M.S. in Data Science program at Columbia University in 2014, part of DSI’s inaugural class. His work is focused on the innovations and commercialization of state-of-the-art wireless technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), and data science. He’s received many awards in industry and academia — including a Verizon Fellowship — for his contributions to leveraging AI and data science to improve network and device performance. He’s also received the award of Asian American Engineer (2017) and the TMForum Future Digital Leader Award (2019). He’s authored thirteen books and over 40 papers; holds more than 60 patents; contributes to more than 50 telecom standards; and serves on various global telecom standards bodies.
You were selected as an IEEE fellow due to your leadership in network intelligence and self-organizing cellular networks, can you share more about this work?
I was one of the first scientists in the telecom sector in the United States to apply data science and AI to cellular networks. I leveraged my expertise in data science to evaluate the performance of 3G and 4G networks to improve service performance and network quality. At the time, I worked for Verizon, which has the largest 3G and 4G networks in the US. When 5G was introduced around five years ago, I moved to AsiaInfo Technologies, the largest telecom software company in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) area and one of the top two telecom software companies in the world. There, I’ve made new contributions to network intelligence, which is a new technology to enable 5G networks to be smarter and more agile. I’ve also successfully productized Private 5G —a novel 5G technology specific for vertical industries — and rolled out one of the largest Private 5G networks for Power Industry last year.
How have you used data science and AI to improve cellular network performance?
In the past, the cellular network had nothing to do with data science or AI. Now, the cellular network is a big data warehouse because it covers so many people and collects significant mobility data from users.
I’ve used AI to predict and detect users’ mobility behavior and behavior analytics to anticipate where signals are needed. For example, if people are using social media apps, or are heavy video game users, then we can make dynamic adjustments to the network.
We’ve also leveraged data science to alter the tilts of the antennas to better cover populations based on our predictions of where people are going to move. Basically, 5G towers can use AI and IoT sensors to create a “smart network” that understands demand, communicates coverage quality, and tunes antennas in response to demand and need. This helps address black holes and poor signals, ultimately more reliable coverage to users.
What is the potential for 5G technologies?
5G, 5G Advanced, and potential 6G will empower the development of smart cities. 5G enables a new generation of networks, which is designed to connect everyone with everything, such as machines and devices. 5G can also significantly improve performance and efficiency, which empower better user quality of experience and connections integral to the roadmap of a smart city.
In the application layer, 5G will bring smart education, smart healthcare, smart transport, and smart public safety. In general, 5G provides smart cities and citizens with improved infrastructure and applications, which target closing the digital divide.
Since the beginning, 5G has been positioned to help vertical industries drive digital transformation. A key task of 5G is to identify the rigid demands from vertical industries and leverage advanced capabilities to address industry applications. 5G is no longer optional, but a must for digital transformation in verticals such as smart factories, smart manufacturing, smart mining, and smart logistics.
What does it mean to you to be selected as an IEEE Fellow?
It’s the highest professional recognition for people working in engineering, data science, and technology, across industry and academia. It’s a very important career achievement and I’m honored to have my contributions and expertise recognized through the IEEE. It’s a new milestone for my career.
Can you share some of your professional goals for how you hope to build on your work in the future?
The IEEE Fellowship, I hope, will create new avenues for me to expand my work – especially as cellular networks move toward 6G networks.
Today’s 5G network is a closed and black box-based system like iOS. My goal in the next decade is to develop open, disaggregated, and white box-based network technologies for 6G. I am looking forward to evolving the networks in the 6G era.
I’ve gained a lot of experience on the industry side throughout my career – and I’m potentially interested in exploring work in academia in the future. My PhD advisor transitioned from industry science at Bell Labs to a professor, and I can see myself probably following a similar career path. But, in the immediate future, I want to fully contribute to the industry, especially through the growth from 5G to 6G in the next decade.
–Emily Halnon