What do we have today? Well, some (extended) discussion about yesterday’s newsletter item, about a new era of AI token economics, courtesy of Nvidia chief Jensen Huang at GTC. “This is where I torture all of you, but it’s too important,” he says. It is worth reading – if only because, in amongs the grand sales pitch, it sounds like a vision of the future.
And the future looks messy, and someone (else) needs to make some money out of it – which means everyone else in this new k-shaped economy, where the tech industry rakes it in, hand-over-fist, and everything else goes south.Food for thought; Huang presents a way AI infrastructure might be charged for and paid for, at least.
But what about telcos? Juan Pedro has news from mobile operators Orange and Du, all about their usage and sale of AI technologies and services, and Red Hat (from MWC) says telcos have a good platform, now, to kick-on. There’s a whole collection of recent writing below the line about how this whole AI story is playing out in fixed and mobile telecoms.
James Blackman
Executive Editor
RCR Wireless News
RCR Top Stories
Token economics: The message from Nvidia chief Jensen Huang at GTC is that AI is no longer about models or chips, but about monetizing inference at scale – where tokens are the core unit of value and data centers are revenue factories.
Agents, Orange: Orange Business has launched collaboration, AI, and voice solutions for sovereignty and trust, as group chief Christel Heydemann emphasized internal use of its own platforms to support enterprise credibility and adoption.
UAE 5G-A push: Du and Huawei are planning a second phase of 5G-A upgrades in the UAE with 10Gbps speeds, better indoor coverage, and new service models – including applications in autonomous mobility and low-altitude connectivity.
Broadband rebounds: Dell’Oro says the broadband equipment spending is set to recover in 2026, driven by DOCSIS upgrades and rising device shipments, while operators take mixed approaches to Wi-Fi 7 adoption across global markets.
Tech-co platforms: Red Hat says telcos are evolving into tech-driven platforms, powered by AI and automation. Common cloud foundations, digital sovereignty, and 6G revenue opportunities are accelerating the shift, it tells RCR Wireless.
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Beyond the Headlines
Nvidia talks AI-RAN: Nvidia’s trillion-dollar AI infrastructure forecast set the tone at GTC yesterday, framing its AI-RAN partnerships with Nokia and T-Mobile (part of a $2tn industry) as a new frontier for low-latency inference at the edge.
Meta chip roadmap: Meta is accelerating its custom silicon efforts with new MTIA 300, 400, 450, and 500 chips. It is moving to a six-month iteration cycle to optimize for AI inference workloads while maintaining modular design for DC racks.
Agility is money: ‘Frontier’ telcos like AT&T and Vodafone are deploying hundreds of AI agents across the board, says Microsoft. It details a weeks–to-minutes use-case with the latter. But telcos also have three big problems in the AI race.
Softbank sets AI stall: Softbank’s ‘telco AI cloud’ seeks to manage AI workloads across a nationwide distributed GPU network. The architecture enables real-time physical AI by offloading complex robotics processing to the edge.
Agents of chaos: Enterprises are scrambling as AI workloads splinter across the cloud-edge landspace. Equinix reckons the answer is in neutral interconnection hubs to orchestrate distributed infrastructure, and bring inference closer.
What We're Reading
UK to lead G7 AI: The UK has said it will lead AI adoption among G7 countries, backed by £2.5bn investment, as part of wider “big choices” to boost growth through technology, closer European ties and regional economic rebalancing.
SKT preps One AI: SK Telecom is embedding AI across its networks, IT systems, and services, while investing in hyperscale data centers and trillion-parameter models to deliver autonomous operations under its One AI vision.
Alibaba taps agents: Alibaba has launched an enterprise AI platform, Wukong, while also restructuring AI operations into a new unit, amid leadership exits – signalling a shift to agent tools and monetization across its ecosystem.
TAM-1 milestone: The TAM-1 subsea cable has landed in Colombia, extending the trans-Americas network and boosting regional connectivity between the US, Caribbean and Latin America with high-capacity, low-latency infrastructure.
Sidecar AI power: Siemens and Rittal are to develop high-efficiency data center power infrastructure, targeting AI workloads with scalable “sidecar” power systems to accelerate deployment, sustainability, and rising rack power densities.
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