The graph neural networking challenge: a worldwide competition for education in AI/ML for networks

During the last decade, Machine Learning (ML) has increasingly become a hot topic in the field of Computer Networks and is expected to be gradually adopted for a plethora of control, monitoring and management tasks in real-world deployments. This poses the need to count on new generations of student...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Suárez-Varela Maciá, José Rafael|||0000-0002-7141-3414, Ferriol Galmés, Miquel|||0000-0002-7806-2979, López Brescó, Albert, Almasan Puscas, Felician Paul|||0000-0003-3903-6759, Bernárdez Gil, Guillermo, Pujol Perich, David, Rusek, Krzysztof, Bonniot, Loïck, Neumann, Christoph, Schnitzler, François, Taïani, François, Happ, Martin, Barlet Ros, Pere|||0000-0001-7837-0886, Cabellos Aparicio, Alberto|||0000-0001-9329-7584
Format: article
Publication Date:2021
Country:España
Institution:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repository:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/360063
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/360063
https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3477482.3477485
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Machine learning
Computer networks
Network AI
Graph neural networks
Aprenentatge automàtic
Ordinadors, Xarxes d'
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria de la telecomunicació::Telemàtica i xarxes d'ordinadors
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Intel·ligència artificial::Aprenentatge automàtic
Description
Summary:During the last decade, Machine Learning (ML) has increasingly become a hot topic in the field of Computer Networks and is expected to be gradually adopted for a plethora of control, monitoring and management tasks in real-world deployments. This poses the need to count on new generations of students, researchers and practitioners with a solid background in ML applied to networks. During 2020, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has organized the "ITU AI/ML in 5G challenge", an open global competition that has introduced to a broad audience some of the current main challenges in ML for networks. This large-scale initiative has gathered 23 different challenges proposed by network operators, equipment manufacturers and academia, and has attracted a total of 1300+ participants from 60+ countries. This paper narrates our experience organizing one of the proposed challenges: the "Graph Neural Networking Challenge 2020". We describe the problem presented to participants, the tools and resources provided, some organization aspects and participation statistics, an outline of the top-3 awarded solutions, and a summary with some lessons learned during all this journey. As a result, this challenge leaves a curated set of educational resources openly available to anyone interested in the topic.