Turkish tech firm showcases AI-powered networking product in Spain

A Türkiye-based communications firm has recently developed and showcased national tech solutions, using artificial intelligence (AI), at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024 in Barcelona, Spain.

Türkiye’s first AI-powered national network solution, "uMAYA SD-WAN," is designed by Ulak Communications to make wide area network infrastructures easily manageable.

The project offers an innovative solution that directly benefits end-users by providing functions such as centralised management, network abstraction, and enhanced cybersecurity.

Since its initial commercial sale in 2019, "uMAYA SD-WAN" has been provided as a solution to numerous institutions and organisations.

The company will have the opportunity to introduce its product to a large number of Turkish and foreign customers at the MWC, Ali Akcay, Ulak Communications' systems engineering manager, said.

Akcay emphasised that the “uMAYA SD-WAN” offers a management system and a cybersecurity solution for use in wide area network infrastructures. With this product, institutions can ensure secure and uninterrupted communication with cloud services, he added.

Competing global rivals

He said the product has been in use in several areas in Türkiye and abroad for five years now.

The company has been watching what their global competitors have developed and showcasing at the MWC, he said, adding: "At this point, we can see that our product is close to those made by global competitors and even provides technically more advantageous features at certain points.

“Especially this year, we saw that artificial intelligence and cloud-based solutions are very prominent at the event. We have been trying to develop and popularise these technologies with our products for a long time, and our efforts in this field are steps taken at the right time and aimed at the right target.”

The goal is to create a world-class technology product in the country, and Ulak Communication wants the product to be able to provide much higher-level features in cybersecurity and network management, as well as to compete with global competitors in different classifications, Akcay said.

He underlined the difficulty of developing a product of this caliber, saying one of the most important motivators for the company is for Turkish institutions to use the product.

AI to detect behavior eliminates security risks

Akcay said cybersecurity is becoming increasingly complex as new cybersecurity threats, attack methods, and vulnerabilities emerge daily, all of which must be addressed quickly.

He said, “Behavior-based detection, which detects whether an attack is launched or there is a normal reaction from the user behavior in incoming traffic, is a subject that is focused on a lot. We aim to use artificial intelligence intensively in our SD-WAN product, especially in the cybersecurity layer.”

“The aim here is to eliminate security risks, human error, configuration, and monitoring-related errors by providing an autonomous cybersecurity layer that is not dependent on external sources," he added.

End-to-end encrypted communication

According to Akcay, the SD-WAN is used to manage traffic between users, systems, and data centres, securing all traffic from endpoints and providing secure access over the wide area network.

He pointed out that the product provides end-to-end cybersecurity through encryption, traffic monitoring, and other features, as well as uninterrupted service by connecting to multiple networks simultaneously.

“We use multiple carrier networks simultaneously. This product enables radio networks, fiber infrastructures, and broadband internet infrastructures to be used securely as access infrastructure," he stated.

He said, “All management here is carried out by a central control layer. The traffic management and cybersecurity policies you implement can be easily managed from a single point through this layer.

"A central control layer handles all management in this system. This layer allows you to easily manage the traffic management and cybersecurity policies you implement from a single point."