Two European incumbents, France’s Orange and Telecom Italia, are the latest to provide details of how they aim to use artificial intelligence to make their 5G networks more efficient (and reduce staff). Orange has been engaged in a research project with IBM and Nokia to use AI to predict future demand patterns in mobile networks so that it can plan them accurately, rather than always having to provision for peak usage. The CogNet project is being conducted under the auspices of Europe’s 5G -PPP (5G Public Private Partnership) program, and it also includes Spain’s Telefónica, another frontrunner in the world of telco network AI, plus cloud services provider Interoute and Germany’s research foundation Fraunhofer Institute. CogNet got started back in…