I am honored to share that our paper, “Towards Explainable Artificial Intelligence in Optical Networks: The Use Case of Lightpath QoT Estimation,” has received the 2026 IEEE Communications Society Charles Kao Award for Best Optical Communications & Networking Paper.
This prestigious award recognizes the most outstanding paper published in the IEEE/Optica Journal of Optical Communications and Networking, and I am truly grateful to see our work acknowledged by the IEEE Communications Society.
This achievement would not have been possible without the collaboration of an outstanding team. My sincere thanks to my co-authors Omran Ayoub, Davide Andreoletti, Andrea Bianco, Massimo Tornatore, Silvia Giordano, and Cristina Rottondi for their dedication, expertise, and invaluable contributions throughout this research.
I am particularly pleased that this recognition highlights the growing importance of Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) in the design and operation of next-generation optical networks. As AI becomes increasingly integrated into communication infrastructures, ensuring that its decisions are transparent, interpretable, and trustworthy will be essential for their reliable deployment.
