Learning-to-Optimize as the Missing Architectural Layer of AI-Native Networks

Sixth-generation (6G) networks are increasingly envisioned as AI-native infrastructures integrating communication, sensing, and computing into a unified fabric. However, existing approaches remain largely optimization-centric, relying on closed-loop control with limited reasoning capability. In this paper, we argue for a paradigm shift toward Agentic AI-Native 6G, in which Large Language Model (LLM)-based agents operate as bounded, policy-governed reasoning entities within a semantic control plane layered above deterministic 3GPP infrastructure. We propose a four-layer architecture that integrates deterministic network infrastructure, semantic abstraction of intent and context, hierarchical reasoning, and a distributed multi-agent fabric spanning device, edge, and core domains. To assess feasibility, we develop a proof-of-concept agentic reasoning and orchestration framework and conduct an extensive empirical study using a domain-specific 6G benchmark under realistic deployment constraints. Our results reveal a fundamental tradeoff between reasoning capability and system efficiency, showing that no single model simultaneously satisfies latency, throughput, and accuracy requirements. Instead, heterogeneous deployment of LLM agents across the device--edge--core continuum is necessary to balance these constraints. We further demonstrate that quantization introduces non-uniform effects across models, reinforcing the need for system-level optimization rather than model-level compression alone. These findings establish agentic intelligence as a viable architectural direction for 6G and highlight key challenges in achieving scalable, trustworthy, and self-reasoning networks. All experimental results and evaluation scripts are publicly available to support reproducibility.

Future sixth-generation (6G) mobile networks are envisioned to be equipped with a diverse set of powerful, yet highly specialized, optimization experts. Such a promising vision is concurrently expected to give rise to the need for scalable mechanisms that can select, combine, and orchestrate such experts based on high-level intent and uncertainty descriptions. In this paper, we propose an agentic artificial intelligence (AI)-based network optimization framework that integrates mixture of experts (MoE) architectures with large language models (LLMs). Under the proposed framework, the employed LLM acts as a semantic gate to reason over operator objectives and dynamically compose suitable optimization agents. The proposed framework is formulated in a model-agnostic manner and bridges human-readable network intents with low-level resource allocation decisions, enabling flexible optimization across heterogeneous objectives and operating conditions. As a representative instantiation, we apply the framework to a joint communication and computing network and design a library of specialized optimization experts covering throughput, fairness, and delay-driven objectives under both regular and robust conditions. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed agentic MoE framework consistently achieves near-optimal performance compared to exhaustive expert combinations while outperforming individual experts across diverse objectives, including delay minimization and throughput maximization.

Modern network policy control maps intent to sequential placement-control decisions. Bellman-style policy optimization primarily asks which action to optimize, while constraints are commonly handled through penalty, barrier, or Lagrangian mechanisms. We observe that before a value function can certify the best deployment, intermediate signals may already identify many candidates that should be excluded from further optimization. This motivates a complementary direction: Learning Not to Optimize. Before a value function is accurate enough to select the best placement-control decision, intermediate signals may already show that candidates are equivalent under state--intent relabeling (quotienting), lead to a uniformly worse future state (dominance), or violate executable network laws (residual screening). \LNOQRD{} uses these computed or learned signals as a shadow process to reshape the domain on which primal policy optimization is performed, thereby reducing the action space. We prove lossless quotienting and dominance under explicit equivariance and monotonicity conditions, bound frontier size and ranking cost, and quantify losses from approximate certificates and primal estimates. Experiments show that \LNOQRD{} reduces small-instance candidates by $75.9\%$ while retaining $90.8\%$ near-oracle coverage and, on large instances, achieves the highest utility and intent satisfaction, the lowest hard-law violation and post-generation latency, and a $73.0\%$ average reduction among candidate-based baselines.