Podcast

Ep 121 – Building AI-driven autonomous networks with Google Cloud (Angelo Libertucci)

August 4, 2025

This week’s guest

Angelo Libertucci

Global Head of Industry, Telecom Google Cloud

Network APIs are the telecom industry’s next big bet for unlocking new revenue, with McKinsey & Company projecting they could generate up to $300 billion in connectivity and edge computing revenue over the next four to six years. But the real challenge isn’t technical—it’s convincing millions of developers to adopt telco’s network APIs instead of sticking with what they already use.

Google Cloud runs the largest private network on the planet, managing billions of users with a fraction of the staff that regional telcos need. Now it’s opening up its playbook to share this AI-driven approach with telecommunications operators.

In this episode, I’m talking with Angelo Libertucci, global head of industry for telecom at Google Cloud, about its partnership with Ericsson to build a cloud-native, 5G core and autonomous operations framework entirely on Google Cloud that can self-heal and self-optimize without human intervention.

Listen now to hear:

How Google’s partnership with Ericsson delivers instant service deployment for 5G networks [03:40]
Why the timing is finally right for telcos to move core network functions to the public cloud [04:56]
The math behind network utilization that makes public cloud for network workloads financially compelling [09:12]
How Bell Canada transformed its network performance using autonomous operations without moving workloads to cloud [13:55]

Links and resources

Read about Google Cloud and Ericsson’s carrier-grade 5G Core-as-a-Service platform.
Learn about Google Cloud’s Autonomous Network Operations framework.
Check out O2 Telefónica Germany and Google Cloud’s partnership to move 5G functions to the cloud with Nokia.
Watch my 2018 Interview with Google Cloud about Spanner (yes, I’ve been talking about telco and the public cloud for FOREVER)!
Angelo was a professional hockey player. Check out his jersey when he played with the Canadian All Stars.
I’m not a hockey player, but I do play tennis. Check out this sport that combines both, ice tennis — watch out for those slapstick backhands!
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Guest bio

Angelo Libertucci heads the telecom industry for Google Cloud globally. He is responsible for business development and strategy, partnerships, and field enablement that will drive CSP service differentiation and value, leveraging Google Cloud’s technology and platform. He also identifies and capitalizes on new opportunities across Google’s ecosystem.

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