Raouf Boutaba, University Professor and Director of the Cheriton School of Computer Science, has been appointed the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Network Intelligence. Tier 1 Chairs are awarded to outstanding researchers recognized by their peers as world leaders in their fields. Each chair provides $200,000 annually for seven years, for a total of $1.4 million in funding, and may be renewed for an additional seven-year term.
“On behalf of the Faculty of Mathematics, I extend my heartfelt congratulations to Raouf, my colleague and friend, on his appointment as the Canada Research Chair in Network Intelligence,” said Jochen Koenemann, Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics. “This prestigious appointment honours a career marked by excellence in research, teaching and service at Waterloo, as well as significant contributions to computer and communications networks. Raouf is an exceptional scholar, and we are fortunate to have him as both a researcher and senior administrator at our university.”
Raouf Boutaba is an internationally recognized researcher whose pioneering contributions to automated network management have helped drive the evolution toward autonomous networking. He is also widely recognized for ground-breaking research in network virtualization and network softwarization that is transforming how communication networks are designed, operated and managed.
He has co-authored two books and 16 book chapters, co-edited 17 books, and holds 15 patents. His research has received 21 best paper awards, including 13 from leading network management conferences. As of May 2026, his publications have been cited more than 41,000 times, with an h-index of 81, according to Google Scholar.
Since joining Waterloo in 1999, he has held several senior academic leadership roles. He served as Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Mathematics from 2016 to 2019, followed by Associate Dean of Innovation and Entrepreneurship from 2019 to 2020. Since 2020, he has served as the Director of the Cheriton School of Computer Science.
His many honours include being named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2012 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2019. He was named a University Research Chair in 2018. He was appointed the inaugural Rogers Research Chair in Network Automation and awarded the title of University Professor, both in 2024. In that same year, he received the Award of Excellence in Graduate Supervision for his exceptional mentorship and helping train a generation of award-winning researchers and industry leaders.
About this research
Modern networks are evolving toward more flexible, agile and scalable architectures driven by the adoption of cloud computing principles. At the same time, network softwarization, made possible by software-defined networking and network function virtualization, is transforming networks into programmable environments by decoupling the control and data planes while implementing network functions as software running on commodity hardware.
This evolution, combined with the rapid growth and diversity of devices and services, has significantly increased network management complexity. Traditional network management relies heavily on human operators, an approach that is costly, error-prone and slow to adapt to dynamic network conditions. Although effective in small-scale networks, traditional approaches struggle with the increasing scale and complexity of modern networks.
Automated, intelligent network management has become a necessity.
Professor Boutaba’s team recently proposed a blueprint for an intelligent automated control loop that monitors, analyzes, plans and executes network management. Here, network intelligence refers to the ability to collect, analyze and interpret network data to generate insights and support informed decision-making using advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) techniques. However, real-world deployment of automated network management is constrained by several challenges, including limited network programmability, the complexity of real-time analysis, and a lack of global visibility across networks.
The goal of the research made possible by this Canada Research Chair is to enable ubiquitous intelligence by integrating AI/ML capabilities into every stage of the control loop, thereby facilitating closed-loop network automation. Specifically, the research will focus on developing mechanisms for —
- flexible, real-time telemetry leveraging AI/ML and programmable data planes,
- efficient AI/ML–driven fault management in virtualized network environments, and
- adaptive service orchestration using AI/ML–based traffic prediction, network modelling, and optimization techniques.
The global network intelligence market is valued at more than $4.24 billion USD and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 26.2 per cent through 2030, underscoring the significant opportunity for this research to drive innovation in network intelligence and accelerate automation in network management.
Government of Canada’s research ecosystem
The award is part of the federal government’s investment of more than $168 million in research funding. As a partner in the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Canada Foundation for Innovation is investing more than $5.8 million through the John R. Evans Leaders Fund to support 25 research infrastructure projects at 16 institutions.
In total, six Waterloo researchers were announced as new and renewed Canada Research Chairs, representing an investment of $6 million.