Tommaso Melodia
Tommaso Melodia, William L. Smith Professor at Northeastern University, USA
Open 6G: Toward Self-Synthesizing Autonomous NextG Networks
This talk will present an overview of the Open6G research program, which has established the architectural and algorithmic foundations for open, programmable, virtualized, and AI-powered next-generation cellular networks. We will review key advances in open RAN architectures, software-defined control, large-scale experimental testbeds, and hierarchical AI-driven network intelligence.
Building on these foundations, we will chart the path toward the next frontier: the transition from networks that are programmable, observable, and controllable to autonomous, self-synthesizing systems capable of generating their own functionalities, whether standardized or not, and optimizing their own behavior to deliver better performance or new services tailored to specific users.
We will discuss how agentic AI, combining reasoning, planning, and tool use, can enable this vision, and present recent results including multi-agent architectures and LLM-driven automation pipelines that represent concrete steps toward end-to-end network autonomy.
About the Keynote
Tommaso Melodia is the William Lincoln Smith Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, and the Founding Director of the Institute for Intelligent Networked Systems (INSI), a transatlantic research center spanning Boston, Burlington (MA), and London with over 200 members. He directs Open6G, a federal-industry-university cooperative R&D center for next-generation open, programmable, and AI-powered 6G systems, and served as Director of Research for the NSF PAWR Program, a $100M+ national initiative that deployed city-scale wireless testbeds across the United States. He leads Colosseum — the world’s largest wireless network emulator — serving researchers worldwide.
Prof. Melodia is a Fellow of the ACM, IEEE, and the National Academy of Inventors, and a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award. He has received numerous best paper awards, including at IEEE INFOCOM and IEEE Globecom. He has authored over 370 peer-reviewed publications, holds 40+ patents, and is the co-founder of multiple technology spinoffs. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier Computer Networks, a co-founder of the AI-RAN Alliance and the 6G Symposium, a board member of the OpenAirInterface Software Alliance, and a member of the research council of the ATIS Next G Alliance. He served as TPC Chair for IEEE INFOCOM and General Chair for ACM MobiHoc, among others. His research has been extensively funded by U.S. government agencies and industry partners.
