Was there ever a better time for the beleaguered European telecoms sector to pitch a deal to the authorities about market consolidation? Was there ever a better time for the European tech sector, at large, to get on its high horse about red tape and market regulation? Because, lord knows, Europe needs its big guns to load up, and let fly. Much has been made about the fact that this SFR carve-up in France will remain under review until late 2027, providing EU regulators with ample chance to test its commercial logic against protection and competition doctrine. But right now, the AI arms race puts those objectives at odds: if Europe wants digital sovereignty, economic autonomy, and any meaningful industrial resurgence, then its biggest tech firms need the capital flex to invest in infrastructure. Which means accepting more consolidation, not less – and quickening, and probably loosening, corporate regulation. So you’ve got to think that Bouygues, Orange, and Iliad look like they are quids-in on SFR – and all the sector’s open letters and public pleas about industrial competitiveness might actually be heard.

As if to underline the point: the UK government has followed on the heels of its French counterpart’s AI fundraising campaign at its Choose France summit last week by issuing a roll-call of new sovereign AI investments: a £1.1 billion state-funded AI ‘hardware plan’ for British firms developing AI chips and computing; £2 billion from AMD; £1.7 billion from Nebius; a £12 million AI “support package” from the Mayor of London. Which is nothing compared to Softbank’s (“up-to”) €75bn commitment to build 5GW of AI data center capacity in France, but might still be considered a decent capital windfall for a parochial-sounding event like London Tech Week. That is, until you compare it (or either) to the $920 million a month ($30 billion to June 2029) that Google (says it) is going to spend to use xAI’s data centers. Which is a funny figure – because it shows both the impossible game the UK and France are engaging in (plus the gross concentration of economic-power), and the corporate sham at the heart of the AI economy: a circular deal with lots of exit clauses (90 days’ notice), and a single concrete outcome: higher share prices and IPO valuations.

James Blackman
Executive Editor
RCR Wireless News

RCR Top Stories

French shrinkage: Telcos in France have agreed the deal to split SFR between Bouygues, Orange, and Iliad. The transaction boosts their commercial scale, investment capacity, and sovereignty ambitions, but it has to get approval.

Network bottleneck: Execs from Marvell and Nvidia confirm what the telco industry has been saying for ages – that AI constraints are shifting from compute and memory to connectivity, where optical networking is the next major bottleneck.

Uplink timeline: Samsung expects technologies similar to its recently demonstrated 3Tx 5-layer uplink configuration with MediaTek to be commercialized around late 2027, with potential benefits for FWA, cloud, and AI services.

India DC project: A proposed $21 billion AirTrunk data center project in Maharashtra highlights rising hyperscale and AI infrastructure demand in India and could further strengthen the state’s data center leadership.

Defense comms: Defense comms is about more than resilient links, satellite comms, private 5G, and edge AI. It is about building an interoperable, trusted, and continuously validated comms ecosystem that can operate across domains.

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Beyond the Headlines

AI networks boom: AI-driven demand from hyperscalers and service providers is expanding networking opportunities, says Ciena chief Gary Smith, prompting his company to project its addressable market could reach $50 billion by 2029.

Infra beyond GPUs: Nebius says future AI infrastructure opportunities extend beyond GPU capacity, with inference platforms, software optimization and emerging agent-based services expected to play a growing role in the market.

Sovereignty pitch: Selection of Orange by hospital group CHU de Rouen to deliver AI-change is reflective of the whole telco sector’s sovereignty position, right now, as trusted stewards of enterprise data. But Orange goes deeper.

LoRaWAN roadmap: Thoughts on the plan to make LoRaWAN the master of ‘massive IoT’. It is called a technical roadmap, but it is mostly about integration and interoperability, rather than IoT pyrotechnics. But it is a master-plan, all the same.

AI, down under: Big news in the subsea sector, as Telstra has a new land-and-sea swap deal with Google to pump AI workloads in and out of Australia, along the former’s fiber backbone and the latter’s pipes into the Asia Pacific region.

What We’re Reading

AWS taps Corning: Amazon has a multibillion-dollar deal with Corning to expand US fiber optic production for data centers, strengthening domestic supply chains and AI infrastructure. The deal will create 1,000 manufacturing jobs.

Auto private 5G: Vodafone Business and Geely Technology have extended their partnership to expand connected vehicle services, including in-car internet, private networks and cloud connectivity. The deal is for Geely’s European operations.

AMD for UK AI: AMD has committed up to £2bn over five years to accelerate AI innovation and research in the UK. The money will expand computing infra, support collaborations with unis and partners, and strengthen sovereign AI capabilities.

Enterprise AI push: IBM and Google Cloud have a deal to scale enterprise AI by combining IBM’s consulting expertise with Google Cloud’s AI infrastructure. The collaboration aims to accelerate enterprise AI adoption across industries.

Slicing strikeforce: Proximus used three simultaneous 5G slices during a Red Devils football match in Belgium, supporting medical services, live broadcasting, and mobile payments. The trial proved the tech in a packed stadium.

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