Networking Systems of AI: On the Convergence of Computing and Communications

Artificial intelligence (AI) and 5G system have been two hot technical areas that are changing the world. On the deep convergence of computing and communication, networking systems of AI (NSAI) is presenting a paradigm shift, where distributed AI becomes immersive in all elements of the network, i.e., cloud, edge, and terminal devices, which make AI virtually operating as a networking system. On the other hand, by the evolution of the communication systems, a network is becoming a service-specific system interweaved with AI, i.e., the network operates as an AI system, enabling real-time smart services. With the developing technology trends of “AI as a network and network as an AI,” the ecosystem of NSAI can be presenting the next-generation waves of both AI systems and B5G-6G communication networks. In this article, we mainly aim to provide a comprehensive survey on the system architecture, key technologies, application scenarios, challenges, and opportunities of NSAI, which can shed light on the future developments of both telecommunications and AI computing. The contributions of this article also include: 1) providing a unified framework for the deep convergence of computing and communications, where the network and application/service can be jointly optimized as a single integrated system and 2) suggesting the roadmap and open research problems in realizing the online-evolutive integration of cyberspace, physical world, and human society, toward the ubiquitous brain networks (UBNs), which are requiring the joint efforts from both research communities of computing and communication.