Google Plans to Achieve Fully Automated Operation of 2 Million Miles of Fiber Optic Network

At the Google CLOUD NEXT conference in Las Vegas, USA, Google is upgrading its fiber optic backbone network covering 2 million miles with the goal of achieving Level 5 autonomous operation by the end of this year. This means that in the future, the entire network system will be controlled by AI agents rather than humans.
Muninder Sambi, Vice President and General Manager of Google Cloud Network and Security, revealed to Fierce that as part of its 2025 Level 5 automation plan, the company is upgrading all of its physical infrastructure. The upgrade includes achieving exponential scalability, reliability beyond the traditional “Five Nines” standard, creating network digital twin replicas, and adopting Google’s independently developed new protective re routing (PRR) technology. Sambi explained that PRR is an alternative solution developed by Google after determining that MPLS and segmented routing technologies cannot meet AI needs.
By integrating AI proxy control systems, Google will soon build a fifth level network. This network is also the infrastructure for its newly released Cloud WAN service. We are moving from automation to autonomy, “Sambi said.” AI agents will be able to operate networks without human intervention and will reach the fifth level of TMForum standards by the end of the year. “

Autonomous Network Grading System

The fifth level is the highest level of TM Forum’s autonomous network maturity model, which is divided into six levels from manual management (level 0), basic automation (level 1) to fully autonomous operation with almost no human intervention (level 5). According to the TM Forum official website, most telecom operators have set achieving Level 4 (highly autonomous) by 2025 as their strategic goal. China Mobile and Tsinghua University were the first to reach this milestone at the end of last year, while Vivo in Brazil followed suit in January 2025. But Google is clearly pushing the standards to a higher level, the fifth level.

Level 5 Network Operation Mode

Sambi pointed out that every component of the network will be fully programmable, and AI agents will be responsible for the full process management of capacity planning, inventory systems, root cause analysis, and network redundancy assurance. Regarding programmability and PRR technology, he explained that the network will be divided into multiple slices (internally referred to as shards by Google). When AI detects a fault in a certain slice, it can immediately isolate it and switch to a backup slice to ensure zero perception for user applications. In addition, Google adopts a diversified supplier strategy in different network slices to avoid the impact of a single supplier problem on the entire network.
At present, it seems that Google is likely to become the first enterprise to achieve Level 5 network autonomy. The industry is closely monitoring whether any operators can follow up on this technological breakthrough.