Closing the Network Management Capability Gap with Autonomous Networks

For 25 years, telecom operators have watched network complexity outpace the tools built to manage it, a widening gap that has driven operations costs ever higher. At DTW Ignite 2026 in Copenhagen, Telecom TV’s, James Pearce spoke with Zinkworks CEO, Paul Madden about why that capability gap is finally starting to close, and why operators today fall into two camps: those actually deploying autonomous networks, and those still just talking about it.

Highlights

• Zinkworks sees the Google Cloud platform as the technology that finally closes the 25-year capability gap between network complexity and network management, making zero-touch, level 4/5 autonomy achievable rather than aspirational.
• Tier-one engagements show the shift in action: by partnering with Zinkworks, VMO2 is driving AI-led autonomy across its full network operations lifecycle, Vodafone is co-developing an rApp Studio to let its own engineers build automation solutions, and MasOrange is using a digital twin for AI-powered root cause analysis and anomaly detection.
• Zinkworks is investing in productizing key solutions like rApp Studio and Energy Saver, a patented graph time-series model that predicts cell-level load to power down carriers when demand is low, while still tailoring bespoke delivery since no single platform fits every operator.