TX4Nets

    Scope of the workshop

    Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly shaping the design, management, and optimization of communication networks, offering new opportunities to enhance service provisioning and operational efficiency. Despite these advances, the adoption of AI-driven solutions in operational telecom networks remains cautious. Network operators continue to raise concerns regarding the reliability, transparency, and trustworthiness of Machine Learning (ML) and AI models, particularly when deployed in safety- and mission-critical infrastructures such as communication networks. The black-box nature of many AI techniques, coupled with limited guarantees on robustness and reliability, remains a key barrier to widespread adoption.

    Building on the success of its previous editions, the 3rd International Workshop on Trustworthy and eXplainable Artificial Intelligence for Networks (TX4Nets), co-located with IFIP Networking 2026, aims to foster research and innovation at the intersection of AI and networking, with a strong emphasis on trust, interpretability, and operational readiness. The workshop will bring together researchers, practitioners, and industry experts to discuss cutting-edge methodologies and practical solutions that enable transparent, reliable, secure, and efficient AI-driven network systems.

    TX4Nets will focus on the foundational pillars of trustworthy AI, including transparency, explainability, robustness, reliability, adaptability, security, data privacy, and computational efficiency, and their impact on the automation and optimization of communication networks. In addition to peer-reviewed technical sessions, the workshop will feature an invited keynote and a tutorial on Explainable AI (XAI) for networks, specifically targeting non-experts in XAI, with the goal of lowering the entry barrier and promoting the practical adoption of explainability techniques in networking applications.

    Two successful editions of the TX4Nets workshop have been held, in conjunction with the IFIP NETWORKING conference:

    This workshop will be held exclusively in-person.

    Topics of interest:

    Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

    • Trustworthy AI for communication networks, including network management, control, and automation
    • Reliability, robustness, and safety of AI models for networking applications
    • Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) for networks: methods and frameworks
    • XAI for enhancing trust, transparency, and accountability in AI-driven network systems
    • Human-in-the-loop and human-centered AI for communication networks
    • Concept-based, interpretable, and hybrid AI models for networking applications
    • Behavioral verification, validation, and testing of AI models in networked systems
    • Causal ML and causal reasoning for networking use cases
    • Explainable reinforcement learning for network control and optimization
    • Explainable generative AI for networking applications
    • Fairness-aware and ethical AI, including fair resource allocation in communication networks
    • Privacy-, security-, and resilience-aware AI for communication networks
    • XAI for network security, intrusion detection, and threat mitigation
    • XAI-driven network performance optimization
    • XAI for edge, cloud, and Internet-of-Things environments
    • XAI for federated learning-based solutions in 5G/6G and future networks
    • XAI for digital twin-based solutions in 5G/6G and future networks
    • Case studies, real-world deployments, and experimental evaluations of trustworthy and explainable AI in networks
    • Interoperability, standardization, and best practices for AI in communication networks
    • Regulatory frameworks and compliance aspects for AI in communication networks

    Important Dates

    • Conference dates: May 24th to 27th, 2026
    • Paper submission deadline: March 22, 2026 April 7, 2026  April 14, 2026 (AoE) - Firm
    • Notification of acceptance: April 21st, 2026  April 28, 2026
    • Camera-ready deadline: April 30th, 2026 May 4, 2026
    • Workshop date: May 24th

    Paper submission

    Submitted papers should be written in English by following the IEEE conference format (double-column, 10pt font), with a maximum length limit of 6 (six) printed pages, including all figures, references, and appendices.

    Papers should be submitted through EDAS in PDF through the official workshop submission link EDAS.

    Only original papers that have not been published or submitted for review elsewhere will be considered for publication in the proceedings.

    Papers will appear in the conference proceedings and will be submitted for inclusion into IEEE Xplore subject to meeting IEEE Xplore’s scope and quality requirements.

    At least one author of each accepted paper is required to register and present the work in the workshop.

    A single-blind review process will be followed.

    Workshop Organizing Team

    • General Co-chairs
      • Omran Ayoub, University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland, Switzerland
      • Carlos Natalino, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
      • Sebastian Troia, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
    • Technical Program Committee Co-chairs
      • Frank Loh, University of Wurzburg, Germany
      • Tania Panayiotou, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
      • Cristina Rottondi, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
      • Marco Savi, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy

    TPC Members

    • Georgios Ellinas, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
    • Silvia Giordano, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland
    • Yvan Pointurier, Huawei, France
    • Andrea Bianco, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
    • Mounia Lourdiane, Telecom Sud Paris, France
    • Avishek Nag, University College London, Ireland
    • Carlos Natalino da Silva, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
    • Valerio Persico, Universita di Napoli Federico II
    • Sahar Hoteit, Universite Paris Saclay, France
    • Róża Goścień, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Poland
    • Davide Andreoletti, University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland, Switzerland
    • Jacopo Talpini, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy
    • Sadananda Behera, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, India
    • Marija Furdek, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
    • Marco Cominelli, Università degli Studi di Brescia, Italy
    • Farhad Arpanaei, University Charles III of Madrid, Spain
    • Memedhe Ibrahimi, Politecnic di Milano, Italy
    • Giannis Savva, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
    • Konstantinos Manousakis, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
    • Dario Azzimonti, University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland, Switzerland
    • Piotr Lechowics, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Poland
    • Giampaolo Bovenzi, Universita di Napoli Federico II
    • Oleg Karandin, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
    • Qiaolun Zhang, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
    • Lareb Zar Khan, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna Pisa, Italy
    • Panayiotis Kolios, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
    • Nicolas Souli, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
    • Alfredo Nascita, Universita di Napoli Federico II
    • Fatima Ezzeddine, University of Southern Switzerland, Switzerland