A round-up intro, to get you in the mood. Let’s start with another fantastical analysis from Vish, who considers everyone’s favourite money-spinning future-tech gamble: orbital data centers. As ever, he does the arithmetic for us – while most commentators on LinkedIn bludgeon us with binary rhetoric. Check out the brain on Brett. It is a rigorous piece (3,500 words, and not a single one wasted), which asks what happens when you account for heat rejection, launch economics, orbital congestion, and the simple physics of getting bits back to Earth – rather than just assume solar solves everything. The question is whether space-based compute should be judged against gigawatt-scale terrestrial infrastructure, or whether its future lies in serving workloads that Earth-bound setups simply can’t. After all, satellites didn’t replace terrestrial navigation or fibre networks. So far; strictly speaking; they created complementary layers. The other question – the trillion-dollar one, about a certain IPO valuation – is open to debate.

Okay, and what else? Well, Ericsson is pushing AI directly into the radio network with a software layer that turns RAN units into distributed telco-inference nodes – which is part of the late-5G / early-6G shift to “AI-native” networks rather than AI-optimized ones, probably moving from standards bodies into software faster than expected. Which, for context, might be compared to Nokia’s AI-RAN story with Nvidia, about bringing general-purpose GPU acceleration into the RAN stack itself, and not just orchestrating it from above – so parts of the RAN workload (signal processing, beamforming, scheduling, inference at the edge) run on Nvidia platforms with other workloads. Of course, both are doing the opposite, too – Nokia is also embedding AI into network functions; Ericsson is virtualizing its RAN stack. But the emphasis is different. Ericsson is keeping the AI closer to the original telco action.

Separately, the Finnish firm has just allocated $30m of its $4bn industrial investment in the US to a test and packaging (ATP) factory in Pennsylvania – which will bring 250 new jobs, and is nothing to do with RAN R&D at all (of course), whether augmented with AI of deconstructed for it. Nokia’s move is about photonic and optical chip componentry, and follows its strategy to step backwards from just the mobile access network (versus Ericsson, as discussed yesterday) to ramp-up more urgent fiber sales to connect AI workloads across data centers. It directly addresses this other crippling AI constraint, which gets lost in the popular search for land and power: that better fiber, more dense and efficient, is required to carry these busy AI tokens to a belt-tightening global economy. At some point after 2027, Nokia will talk about mobile networks again, as a new bottleneck for the masters of the AI universe.

And to bring full circle, and home: direct-to-device satellite comms wholesaler AST SpaceMobile, nominally Starlink’s biggest rival and a happier partner for telcos, has just blasted three new systems into space (BlueBirds 8, 9, and 10) – piggybacking on a two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by… SpaceX. Of course it was.

James Blackman
Executive Editor
RCR Wireless News

RCR Top Stories

Orbital DC math: Orbital data centers promise solar power, but face constraints in heat rejection, launch costs, congestion, downlink bandwidth, and depreciation – suggesting niche apps, not hyperscale displacement. Vish Nandlall tells the story.

AI in RAN suite: Ericsson’s new AI-in-RAN suite runs AI models inside basebands and radios via software, activating on existing hardware. T-Mobile trials showed up to 15% higher downlink throughput.

Telcos gain AI role: China is reportedly preparing a $295bn AI infrastructure initiative, with research firm Omdia saying the effort could give state-owned telecom operators a larger role in the country’s AI ecosystem.

Taiwan’s 6G push: Taiwan is signing 6G partnerships with EU entities while advancing domestic spectrum planning, as forecasts say 6G will evolve out of existing 5G networks despite significant long-term investment.

Power problems: Speaking on RCR’s Rack to RAN, Wärtsilä says power now outweighs traditional site selection for AI data centers, prompting developers to increasingly consider on-site generation and alternative deployment strategies.

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Beyond the Headlines

New Ericsson chief: Thoughts, as above, about Ericsson’s succession planning at the top, signalling strategic continuity in 5G execution – and thrown into relief as old rival Nokia continues to pursue a more aggressive AI infrastructure pivot.

Optical decisions: AI infrastructure is reshaping optical networking, but Ciena argues there will be no single winning architecture as operators balance power, capacity, deployment speed and fiber constraints for data center interconnect.

Anterix tests NTN: Last month, the FCC gave Anterix the go-ahead to test direct-to-device communications with Lynk Global. Testing has already begun, and CEO Scott Lang says the initial results are “terrific”.

ASML warns EU: ASML chief Christophe Fouquet’s criticism of the EU’s evolving Chips Act is less an attack on industrial policy than a challenge to where sovereignty can realistically be exercised in a global AI economy.

D2D for the 1%: Speaking days before SpaceX’s IPO announcement, AT&T’s CFO framed satellite D2D as filling the rural 1% gap, not threatening telco margins, and backed three-carrier cooperation on spectrum.

What We’re Reading

US chip expansion: Nokia is expanding its ATP operations, critical for photonic chips, in Pennsylvania. It has earmarked $30m to boost capacity, nearly doubling its Pennsylvania workforce to 500. The move is part of Nokia’s its $4bn US R&D offer.

Net outage agent: Blue Planet has an agentic configuration (CCM) solution to unify device configuration, change, and management . It replaces fragmented tools and manual processes with AI workflows to reduce risk and prevent outages.

6G security brief: University College Dublin is leading the €8m SHIELD-6G project to advance security and reliability in 6G networks. The project unites 19 partners from 10 countries, including Thales, Telefonica, Nokia, and Viavi.

BlueBirds take off: AST SpaceMobile has launched its BlueBirds 8, 9, and 10 satellites, lifting off from Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket today (June 17). They are the largest commercial LEO comms arrays ever, measuring 2,400 square feet.

Enterprise AI deal: IBM and ServiceNow are to address two of the biggest barriers for enterprise AI: the AI data problem and the legacy app layer. They are combining wares and expertise to help enterprises put their data to work for AI.

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