Advancing Resilient Connectivity for the Intelligence-led 6G Era

Bocar A. BA

CEO & Board Member
SAMENA Council

H.E. Eng. Mohammed Al Ramsi

DDG
TDRA-UAE

DCF 2026 opens from a practical premise: the next stage of network evolution will only be as dependable as the infrastructure, operational disciplines and cross-sector dependencies supporting it today. As communications networks become more software-driven, automated and embedded in essential economic and public services, continuity must be considered alongside capacity, speed and innovation. The opening will frame resilience, recoverability and preparedness as immediate priorities, and as part of the groundwork for future-network development.

• Digital continuity as an immediate industry and national infrastructure priority.
• Network resilience as a prerequisite for increasingly intelligent and autonomous networks.
• The need to address dependencies across networks, cloud, computing, power and security.
• Future-network readiness as a matter of capability and preparedness, not technology timing alone.

David Dai

Managing Director of Huawei Gulf ICT Marketing & Solution Sales
Huawei

Network resilience is becoming more demanding as communications infrastructure extends beyond traditional network domains into cloud, computing, software and automated control environments. The keynote may address how resilience can be strengthened across these interdependent layers while preserving operational control and the ability to recover critical functions. In the context of DCF, the emphasis is on building infrastructure that can support greater intelligence and future network evolution without weakening continuity or national operational assurance.

• How resilience requirements are changing as networks become more intelligent and software-driven.
• The importance of operational recoverability and infrastructure control.
• Resilience across network, cloud, computing and supporting infrastructure.
• How present network investment can strengthen future-network readiness.

Gaurav Gangurde

Solution Director
China Mobile International

As networks grow in scale and complexity, maintaining continuity will increasingly depend on the ability to detect changing conditions, make decisions and restore service faster than manual operations alone can allow. This keynote may explore where autonomous network capabilities can strengthen that operational response, including fault detection, traffic management and recovery. It may also consider the corresponding requirement that automation, orchestration and control systems remain dependable when the network itself is under stress.

• Autonomous operations as a means to improve continuity and recovery.
• Faster fault detection, response and service restoration.
• The resilience of the automation and control systems themselves.
• Operational lessons that can prepare networks for greater future autonomy.

Wang Hui

President of NCE Data Communication Domain
Huawei Data Communication Product Line

As networks evolve toward full automation and software-driven operation, the autonomous architecture must fundamentally embed carrier-grade resilience, reliability, and operational control. This keynote highlights how Autonomous Networks, powered by Agentic AI are redefining resilience from reactive recovery to predictive avoidance. We examine three enabling pillars—Connection Quality, Network Resilience, and Network Security. Ultimately, Autonomous Networks fortified by AI-driven resilience not only slash operational complexity but also ensure that carrier infrastructures remain trustworthy, adaptive, and continuously available—making resilience the very bedrock of intelligent, future-proof network operations.

• The evolution of Autonomous Networks empowered by Agentic AI
• Autonomous network architecture designed around resilience and continuity.
• Connection Quality, Network Resilience, and Network Security
• Technology evolution toward intelligent and AI-native networks.

Rajesh Duneja

Partner
AD Little

Eng. Tariq Abdulkarim Al Awadhi

Executive Director, Spectrum Affairs
TDRA

Hassan Eltom

Director
Opensignal

Feng DONG

Chief Representative of Standardization & Industry Development in Middle East Region
Huawei

Zetrix AI

Digital continuity concerns the ability of essential digital services to remain available, or to recover within an acceptable period, when one or more underlying systems are disrupted. That challenge now extends across telecom networks, cloud and computing infrastructure, power, software platforms and other dependencies that no single stakeholder controls end to end. The session places this broader continuity requirement at the foundation of future-network planning, asking what service expectations, responsibilities and resilience capabilities need to be defined now as networks become more autonomous and interconnected.

Baseline Discussion Questions

• What should digital continuity mean from a telecom-sector perspective, and how is it distinct from conventional network resilience or business continuity?
• Which dependencies now have the greatest effect on service continuity across the digital infrastructure chain?
• Where are the most important continuity gaps when responsibility is divided among operators, cloud providers, infrastructure providers, technology vendors and public institutions?
• What minimum levels of service should critical digital infrastructure be expected to maintain during disruption?
• How should continuity be assessed across an end-to-end service rather than through the availability of individual components?
• Which capabilities should be strengthened during the 5G and 5G-Advanced period so they do not become weaknesses in future networks?
• Where could regional cooperation materially improve digital continuity and recovery?

Visiola Pula

Principal
Cullen International

Liu Feng Chang

President of Huawei Foundation Service Marketing & Solution Sales Dept
Huawei

Philip Marnick

General Director
TRA Bahrain

Jawad Abbassi

Head of MENA – Government & Regulatory Affairs
GSMA

Hasan al Shemeili

Head of Infra Technology Planning
du

Dr. Sherif R. Sherif

Senior Strategist, Technology Strategy and Innovation

Omantel

David Hutton

Senior Director Industry Partnership Development
TM Forum

ITU-T

e&

Future networks will depend on a wider set of distributed assets, software platforms, computing resources, data environments and external infrastructure than earlier network generations. Resilience therefore depends not only on redundancy, but on knowing which functions are critical, where dependencies sit, what can be restored locally and how much operational control can be retained during disruption. This session, with participation from leading technology providers, connects these questions with sovereign infrastructure requirements, examining the capabilities that operators and national systems may need in place before future networks become more deeply integrated into critical economic and public functions.

Baseline Discussion Questions

• Which network functions and infrastructure capabilities require the greatest operational control, visibility or recovery capability?
• How should sovereignty be understood in networks that depend on cross-border infrastructure, software, cloud services, standards and supply chains?
• Which dependencies currently create the greatest resilience exposure for telecom networks?
• Where is additional redundancy justified, and where should resilience investment be concentrated because the consequences of failure are highest?
• What should operators be able to restore locally if external systems, international links, cloud platforms or vendor support become unavailable?
• How can resilience requirements be built into procurement, architecture, operations and regulation rather than addressed after deployment?
• Which resilience and sovereign capabilities developed now will become prerequisites for future networks?
• How can technology providers support operators and regulators in strengthening resilience — across network development, industry standards and solutions?
• A great deal of standards work on resilience is under way internationally. How does a technology provider stay aligned with it — how do you participate, how does it actually reach the systems you build, and how do you help bring the different standards and initiatives together?
• Name one resilience or sovereign capability being built today that will be a prerequisite, not an advantage, five years from now.
• How can existing industry assessment and validation frameworks for autonomous networks be applied to strengthen national digital resilience, and what would be required for wider adoption by operators and regulators in the region?

Saif Bin Ghelaita

Director Technology Development Affairs
TDRA

Jawad Abbassi

Head of MENA – Government & Regulatory Affairs
GSMA

David Dai

Managing Director of Huawei Gulf ICT Marketing & Solution Sales
Huawei

Bocar A. BA

CEO
SAMENA Council

David Hutton

Senior Director Industry Partnership Development
TM Forum

e&

Philip Marnick

General Director
TRA Bahrain

Hasan al Shemeili

Head of Infra Technology Planning
du

Dr. Sherif R. Sherif

Senior Strategist, Technology Strategy and Innovation

Omantel

TThe GCC’s digital economy increasingly depends on infrastructure that must remain available through disruption. Resilience is no longer the responsibility of one network or one organization, since GCC networks operate within an interconnected environment shaped by common technology platforms, international connectivity, supply chains, and critical digital-service dependencies. Critical services therefore increasingly depend on interconnected operators, international routes, transport networks, data centers, cloud platforms, power, and other digital infrastructure. Digital continuity is therefore an ecosystem outcome. The opportunity now is to establish a common, practical, and measurable regional view of resilience.

The GCC Network Resilience Joint Initiative, led by the SAMENA Council, to be launched during the Digital Continuity Forum, is intended to turn a shared regional concern into a continuing area of practical industry engagement. The Initiative aims to establish what resilient digital infrastructure needs to be capable of, and will focus on six practical capabilities: PREVENT, TOLERATE, CONTAIN, RECOVER, OBSERVE, VALIDATE.

The objective of this initiative launch is to establish a set of measurable resilience attributes that stakeholders, especially Regulators, Operators, Critical Sectors, and Digital Ecosystem Players, can use to assess readiness, identify gaps, and track improvement.

Launch Focus

• A continuing regional mechanism focused on network resilience and digital continuity.
• Identification of common dependencies and resilience priorities across GCC markets.
• Exchange of relevant operational experience and possible areas for practical cooperation.
• Follow-up work that can inform future DCF discussions and regional engagement.