Partner Article

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison CEO Vikram Sinha is positioning the company as a key enabler in the island nation’s AI renaissance

Speaking to journalists at MWC 2026, Indosat CEO Vikram Sinha reiterated the company’s ambition to pivot from a traditional telco to an “AI-native” powerhouse, saying success could help ‘fast track’ the nation towards its Golden Indonesia 2045 Vision goals.

“Our purpose is to empower Indonesia. The country is on a journey to become a developed nation […] and we believe that AI can be a great enabler,” said Sinha.

Calling AI Indosat’s “North Star”, Sinha explained the company’s approach to the technology as being built on three distinct pillars: first, embracing AI within its telco operations; second, evolving into an AI TechCo providing sovereign cloud services; and, finally, acting as a “nation shaper” for Indonesia’s future.

Indosat is already wholeheartedly embracing this first step, with Sinha emphasising that the company must first transform itself with AI before setting its sights further afield.

“We want to become an AI-native telco and embed AI into everything we do,” he said.

Indonesia perfectly positioned to become an AI leader

While many nations are racing to adopt AI, Sinha argues that Indonesia possesses unique structural advantages that make it ideal for AI development. To demonstrate this, he presented the “AI five-layer cake” – a model encapsulating five key foundational elements for AI success (Energy, Chips, Infrastructure, Models, and Applications), first made popular by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang.

When it comes to the first of these elements – energy – Indonesia is very well positioned, generating substantial surplus power each year.

“When you talk about building AI factories and sovereign AI, a lot of countries struggle on energy, water, land. Indonesia has it in abundance,” said Sinha.

Moving up the ‘cake’ to chips and infrastructure, Indosat has already begun deploying GPU-based AI infrastructure and is scaling its data centre ambitions alongside global technology partners.  Sinha highlighted the country’s efficient cost structure as a significant competitive advantage, with Indosat currently building data centres at roughly half the cost of those in Europe or the US.

“Because we are a low-ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) market, we have to be efficient. This makes our cost structure one of the best in the world for global customers,” he said, adding that the country’s unique geopolitical position also made it an attractive location for investment. “Indonesia has a clear philosophy of ‘friends to all’, with trade agreements with both the US and China.”

Partnerships with companies such as NVIDIA and Google Cloud are intended to accelerate the build-out of the ecosystem while ensuring local control over data and applications.

“In early days, when you talk about building infrastructure, you’re talking about building roads and highways. Now it is all about building digital infrastructure,” said Sinha. “This mission-critical for Indonesia.”

Finally, when it comes to AI models and applications, Indosat is building its own solution: the Sahabat AI platform.

Building sovereign AI infrastructure and ecosystems

Launched in 2024 and powered by NVIDIA GPUs, Sahabat AI is an open-source LLM designed specifically for Bahasa Indonesia and regional languages. Unlike general-purpose global models, Sahabat has been created as a “sovereign AI” ecosystem for Indonesia.

“We are not trying to compete with ChatGPT or Gemini,” said Sinha. “We want to focus on sovereign sensitive data and local language and cultural nuances.”

By providing the necessary compute power and infrastructure for Sahabat domestically, Indosat is fostering a local ecosystem for startups and innovators to co-create applications in essential sectors like agriculture, healthcare, and education.

Sinha is particularly adamant about the importance of keeping data and innovation within national borders to avoid “digital colonisation,” a risk he views as the greatest threat to emerging economies.

“We want to move from being a consumption market to a country which is into infrastructure and co-creation,” he said.

AI: The great equaliser

Beyond the commercial opportunity, Indosat is positioning AI as a driver of broader economic and social development. With a population of around 280 million spread across more than 17,000 islands, Sinha believes AI can play a critical role in addressing structural challenges in Indonesia.

“AI is a great equaliser,” he said. “We are looking at AI from a growth mindset – how it can empower humans.”

That philosophy shapes the company’s early use cases. One initiative uses AI to detect fraud and scam activity across the network. According to Sinha, the system has already blocked more than two billion suspicious communications and flagged millions of potential scammers.

“Our job is not only to connect, but also to protect,” Sinha said.

Other applications are focused on healthcare and agriculture, two sectors where digital tools could help bridge gaps in access and expertise. AI-enabled services could help doctors make faster diagnoses or provide farmers with more precise insights.

Crucially, Indosat says it is prioritising deployment beyond major urban centres.

“It has to help the most deserving,” Sinha said, describing how early AI initiatives were piloted in rural eastern Indonesia rather than the metropolis of Jakarta.

Ultimately, Sinha sees the operator’s AI strategy as closely tied to Indonesia’s long-term development ambitions. By combining connectivity, compute and local innovation, he believes the country can evolve from a digital consumer to a global creator economy.

“If the country is doing well, all of us will do well,” he said.

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Press Release

Nokia announced that it has been selected by Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) for a major new multi‑year 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) deployment and modernization program across the UK. The agreement builds on more than two decades of strategic collaboration between the companies. It marks a significant milestone as Virgin Media O2 continues its mission to deliver the country’s most reliable and high‑performance 5G network with its Mobile Transformation Plan.

Under the new deal, Nokia will supply its latest-generation AirScale RAN portfolio, including ultra-capacity modular baseband, and energy-efficient, future-proofed Massive MIMO radios. Leveraging Nokia’s comprehensive technology roadmap, Virgin Media O2 will benefit from improved spectral efficiency, coverage, capacity, and throughput, ensuring strong 5G performance today while laying the foundation for 5G‑Advanced capabilities.

“We are delighted to deepen our longstanding partnership with Virgin Media O2 through this important new 5G RAN deal. Our AirScale portfolio is designed to deliver the performance, efficiency, and flexibility required for the UK’s future connectivity needs. We look forward to supporting Virgin Media O2 in building one of the most advanced and reliable 5G Advanced networks in the country.” said Mark Atkinson, Head of Radio Access Network, Nokia. 

Transforming the UK 5G experience

The deployment will enable Virgin Media O2 to improve network quality and accelerate modernization through optimized spectrum utilization and enhanced energy-saving software features. Nokia’s latest GigaSite architecture, Dual‑Band Massive MIMO, and AI‑enabled baseband platforms will support seamless scalability and operational efficiency throughout the rollout. The technology uplift is expected to deliver a more reliable connectivity for Virgin Media O2 customers across the country.

As part of the new engagement, Nokia and Virgin Media O2 will expand their collaboration on joint innovation programs, including pilots and proof of concepts that explore advanced RAN intelligence, automation, and energy-efficient architectures aligned with Virgin Media O2’s Mobile Transformation Plan. This new contract extends Nokia’s role as one of Virgin Media O2’s primary RAN partners, following the previously announced agreement to continue 5G rollout and modernization.

“As we continue to evolve and enhance our award‑winning mobile network with our Mobile Transformation Plan, Nokia remains a key strategic partner in helping us deliver reliable connectivity to our customers. This new agreement allows us to accelerate our 5G rollout, improve performance, and ensure we meet growing demand for high‑quality mobile services both today and in the future.” said Jeanie York, Chief Technology Officer, Virgin Media O2. 

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News

Pilot Fiber has rolled out high-capacity wavelength services in New York’s metro, upgrading its backbone to support 400-gigabit connections.

By Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

Scandinavian optical networking solutions provider Smartoptics says New York-based Pilot Fiber has enhanced their critically important fiber backbone using their solution.

According to a release provided to Total Telecom, Pilot Fiber, which serves enterprise and financial services sectors in New York City, now provides “wavelength services over an 800G-ready Smartoptics ROADM architecture.”

Joe Fasone, the CEO of Pilot Fiber, said the process went smoothly. As a result, the company is positioned to offer managed, end-to-end wavelength services between its fiber footprint in Manhattan and New Jersey data centers, where many enterprises co-locate critical infrastructure.

“With any new product, you expect some complexity, but we were able to install and test the equipment and bring services online in about two weeks,” he said.

Pilot Fiber’s network already spans more than 300 miles and interconnects over 1,000 commercial buildings, the release says. Their network supports latency- and capacity-sensitive workloads such as trading, quantum experiments and AI inference.

The upgrade replaces or augments portions of Pilot Fiber’s backbone with a 400G-capable design using Smartoptics DCP-R ROADMs and a DCP-2 transponder chassis, according to Smartoptics.

“Flexibility and scalability”

Additionally, Pilot Fiber the aforementioned equipment can be deployed in a compact 2RU footprint, a notable advantage in cramped points of presence across the city.

“What ultimately drove us to Smartoptics was the flexibility and scalability of the platform,” Fasone added.

Fasone also said the two-week turnaround was critical for time-to-market and operational confidence..

For Smartoptics, the deal is part of a wider push into the U.S. market.

“Pilot is building a more automated and resilient service model to support enterprise connectivity in one of the world’s most demanding metro markets,” Smartoptics CEO Magnus Grenfeldt said, noting that the SoSmart management suite provides visibility and a structured path to automate service planning and activation while preserving reliability.

While the release provides technical detail and vendor quotes, it does not disclose pricing, contract terms, or the exact list of data centers connected under the upgrade.

Some AI tools assisted in the crafting of this report.

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Press Release

[Chongzuo, China, March 26, 2026] In the karst terrain of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Buhua Village, once a remote and economically underdeveloped community, has been transformed into a popular tourist attraction thanks to a 5G information superhighway co-built by China Mobile and Huawei. This digital leap has established the village as a model of rural revitalization, generating over CNY500,000 in annual collective village income and boosting per capita annual earnings by CNY18,000. 

Chongzuo is characterized by impressive karst landforms with peak clusters and peak forests. This breathtaking terrain presents huge challenges for communications network buildout. To overcome these geographic barriers, China Mobile and Huawei have collaborated on technological innovations in a bid to achieve comprehensive network coverage. Today, all administrative villages in Chongzuo have access to 5G networks, while 99% of its natural villages have 4G coverage and 94% have 5G coverage. 

Buhua Village is within the jurisdiction of Chongzuo City. The village upgraded its networks from 4G to 5G as early as 2021, offering residents digital services on par with those seen in major cities. The deployment of advanced communications networks has catalyzed the growth of Buhua’s distinctive local industries. 

In Xinhe Town, where the village is situated, a digital e-commerce ecosystem has been established, featuring 65 product stores on platforms like JD.com and Douyin, which are collectively owned by the village. Furthermore, a live-streaming incubation base has been established, nurturing 27 local live streamers. These stores secure over CNY300,000 in revenue each year by selling local specialties like Buhua brown sugar. This is a handcrafted product that is recognized as intangible cultural heritage, with a 150% price premium over normal brown sugar. It is sold to tier-1 cities in China, like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, and is even exported overseas, including to Japan and South Korea. 

Digital technology is also driving the upgrade of the local tourism industry. China Mobile has established an intelligent ticketing system at the Heishui River, which is Buhua Village’s most popular scenic spot where activities like rafting, boat tours, and paddleboarding are available for tourists. This system has reduced the average time for tourists to purchase tickets from 20 minutes to just 3 minutes, with online purchases now accounting for 30% of the total. Accommodation can also be booked through the system, which has increased the booking rate of local homestays by 30%. 

Digitalization has further expanded to the ecological protection field. A safety monitoring and IT system project for modern irrigation engineering along the Heishui River has been launched, with investment totaling CNY100 million. Supported by the Bianjiang Zhizhou open AI platform, the digital monitoring system is set to cover 13 towns across four counties/districts in Chongzuo. Once up and running, it will enable the integrated, real-time monitoring of water quality and other ecological parameters of the Heishui River, and intelligently issue early warnings to guarantee safe water irrigation across 60,000 hectares of farmland in the river basin. 

Digitalization has helped Buhua Village make the jump from poverty to prosperity. In 2025, the village’s annual collective economic income (generated from assets, land, or enterprises owned by the village community rather than individuals) exceeded CNY500,000. The average income of every household reached over CNY80,000, three times the average income from traditional sugarcane farming. The annual per capita income of villagers increased by CNY18,000. As a result, an increasing number of young people have chosen to return to the village and develop their careers. 

Zhou Peng, General Manager of China Mobile Guangxi’s Chongzuo Branch, said, “By bridging the digital divide, we are helping remote villages like Buhua develop digital trade alongside traditional agriculture. This is transforming resources that were not fully used in the past due to geographical limitations into strong momentum for economic growth in the digital age.” 

Tian Yongsheng, Deputy General Manager of Huawei Guangxi, noted, “Huawei is supporting China Mobile in building a solid digital foundation for Chongzuo with innovative solutions. We look forward to seeing technology overcome geographical limitations and enable more remote villages to achieve leapfrog development in the 5G and AI era.” 

News

Consumer-grade routers manufactured in foreign countries are now on the FCC’s list of products considered to be national security threats.

By Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States has taken a step to heed President Donald Trump’s call to close security gaps in the United States by placing foreign made routers on the FCC’s list of products deemed to pose unacceptable security risks.

As a result of the move, foreign-made consumer grade routers will now be prohibited from receiving FCC authorization, in line with the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act.

“Following President Trump’s leadership, the FCC will continue do our part in making sure that U.S. cyberspace, critical infrastructure, and supply chains are safe and secure,” Chairman Brendan Carr said in a statement included with the FCC’s release.

An exemption for routers granted conditional approval by the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security was also included in the FCC’s decision.

Existing routers not impacted by the decision

Meanwhile, the FCC also urged producers of foreign made routers to submit conditional approval applications.

“As outlined below, today’s action does not impact a consumer’s continued use of routers they previously acquired. Nor does it prevent retailers from continuing to sell, import, or market router models approved previously through the FCC’s equipment authorization process,” the FCC’s release stated. “By operation of the FCC’s Covered List rules, the restrictions imposed today apply to new device models.”

The move is being billed as in line with the president’s strategy for national security, announced in 2025.

“The United States must never be dependent on any outside power for core components—from raw materials to parts to finished
products—necessary to the nation’s defense or economy,” the strategy stated.

A full list of companies and products featured on the FCC’s list of products covered under the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act can be found online at the FCC’s website.

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Interview 

At MWC 2026, we caught up with George Held, CTIO of Azercell, on how the company’s infrastructure is turning Azerbaijan into a regional digital hub 

“We were able to switch the traffic automatically from one place to another,” he said. “This delivered unprecedented experience to our customers.” 

Speaking to Total Telecom at the WinWin studio, Held explained how Azercell’s infrastructure backbone was a key foundation for the nation’s future growth. 

“In our part of the world, we have a saying: if you want happiness and prosperity, you build a road […] In our world nowadays, it’s building a digital road,” he explained. 

In recent years, Azercell has focused on nationwide fibre deployment, including upgrading to the latest GPON technology. 

“At first, we built just a normal GPON network, and now we’re bringing it to GPON with speeds of 50gbps,” said Held. 

This powerful network, Held said, holds the keys to capitalising on Azerbaijan’s strategic geographic position as a transit corridor linking Asia, Europe, and beyond. 

“The role which we play is just absolutely unbelievable because we are connecting East and West, North and South. And by doing this, we are making life so much better for people in our countries. We’re bringing employment. We’re bringing opportunities. And, at the same time, we’re bringing the global economy together,” he said. 

Embracing the AI era 

Beyond deploying high quality infrastructure itself, Azercell is also implementing AI within network management, with a strong focus on developing autonomous, self-healing networks aligned with TM Forum frameworks. These systems dynamically reroute traffic and optimise performance in real time. 

“With autonomous networks we will be able not only to connect people, but give different experiences, different speeds of connectivity. And some elements like low latency bring absolutely different experiences,” said Held. “We’re putting lots of elements on the network just to make sure that the experience for users is absolutely uninterrupted.” 

Held pointed to major live events as proof points of this technology’s effectiveness, including the Azerbaijan Formula One Grand Prix and a recent Justin Timberlake concert in Baku.  

The same capabilities apply to environmental disruptions, including the harsh weather conditions faced in part of the country’s most mountainous regions. 

“Huge winds, huge amounts of snow, rain — they all impact day to day operations,” said Held. “Self-healing networks address this by optimising traffic, bringing the capacity to the places where it really matters.” 

From network performance to commercial growth 

With a more optimised and resilient AI-powered network, opportunities for revenue growth are myriad.  

“Commercial impact is fully related to the customer experience,” said Held, highlighting the importance of network reliability over pure speeds. “If we provided uninterrupted service, the volume of traffic would really see growth.” 

Low latency is also becoming a key differentiator, particularly for cross-border traffic and AI applications. 

“Latency […] is starting to play a really important role,” he said, noting its importance for emerging enterprise services and emerging use cases. “With low latency, all AI advanced applications and all the automatic processing is done in a much more elegant way.” 

In addition to better customer experience across a raft of new services, AI serving as a leveller, allowing junior engineers to learn more quickly and compete with senior colleagues that have many years more experience. 

“Our young engineers came up with a really cool AI tool where all the documents [about the network] are actually installed into one database and they can use natural language processing to pull any of the documents, and the system gives you a response on the network,” Held explained. “It gives a chance for young kids out of the university to deliver quality of service and compete with somebody who has been doing the job for 20 years.” 

More than this, it gives Azerbaijan an opportunity to compete on a global level. 

“Innovation has no ZIP code,” said Held. “AI for us is not just a gimmick. It’s not something which is invented in Cupertino or Mountain View. It can be invented in Baku. It works in Baku and makes lives better for our people.” 

The high cost of missing equipment in field interventions is becoming a thing of the past. With Brady’s complete RFID solution, telco providers and field service operators can now digitise vehicle inventory checks, ensuring every asset is accounted for in seconds.

Instantly see which tools are present in a vehicle – and what is missing. Easily save substantial time per vehicle, per intervention, with automated equipment inventory checks that take only seconds. 

By labelling equipment with passive, battery-free UHF RFID labels, we can let an RFID reader in your vehicle detect which tools and items are present. The RFID reader can check detected tools versus a list of expected items to confirm a complete vehicle inventory or to highlight missing equipment on your phone. 

Be fully equipped before leaving for a field intervention. Avoid losing tools after interventions. Don’t waste time checking visually where every piece of equipment is. Just scan, get confirmation in seconds, and drive to your next destination.  

Solution components 

We develop and manufacture every component in our solution. Tested in in-house laboratories, each component is designed to withstand the wear and tear of field interventions, including exposure to UV, dust and moisture. 

• RFID labels: Brady offers industrial grade on- and off-metal RFID-labels and tags that stay attached and remain legible on your equipment. 

• Fixed RFID readers: Equipped with patented data capture technology, Brady’s fixed RFID readers collect data on items passing through their read range. 

• Portable RFID readers: With intuitive displays, portable RFID readers and SLEDs from Brady deliver unmatched mobility, data collection and interaction. 

Find out more details about the Van Scan solution from Brady! 

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London, March 2nd 2026 – Colt Technology Services (Colt), the global digital infrastructure company, today announced a successful proof of concept for an agentic AI engine it has developed together with Microsoft, to accelerate, simplify and clarify complex deal pricing for customers and enhance the Colt customer experience. As Colt’s customers grow, scale and expand their global presence, pricing can be complex, particularly across global markets, and a lack of transparency can be confusing and costly. The new agentic AI engine reduces time spent on developing and sharing pricing from days to just 10 minutes, giving customers fast, accurate competitive deal pricing to help drive decision making and manage cost control.  

Colt is exploring ways to apply agentic AI throughout the customer journey, from pricing to onboarding and beyond. This pricing agent is one of the first proofs of concept to be explored and delivered as part of the Colt programme. In just three days Colt and Microsoft trained the agent to deliver complex deal pricing across the majority of its markets, with 99% accuracy. While the quotes are generated by the agent, Colt’s skilled teams check them before issuing to customers.  

This agentic AI engine is one of the first tools to be developed as part of Colt’s broader ‘people first’ AI strategy, which focuses on creating secure, scalable and responsible AI ecosystems for its employees and customers, empowering them to face an AI defined future with confidence.  

Frank Miller, chief AI and platforms officer, Colt Technology Services says, “Enterprise IT buying has always been complex. A large-scale global infrastructure project can take weeks for providers to generate accurate pricing, but there’s no question it can slow down delivery. Together with Microsoft, we wanted to explore how AI capabilities can break this pattern. By accelerating and clarifying pricing, our customers can focus on achieving their goals, faster, while we keep them connected across the world. Businesses deserve connectivity without complexity and its down to global digital infrastructure providers to make sure this happens.” 

Frank added, “We’ll continue the innovation journey with Microsoft in building the factory for agentic application in telecommunication with a specific focus on the best possible customer experience; fast, simple, accurate, secure and reliable.” 

“Agentic AI has the potential to transform complex enterprise workflows in the telecom industry, where speed, accuracy and scale are critical,” said Rick Lievano, Worldwide CTO, Telco, Media & Gaming at Microsoft. “Colt’s initiative, combining deep telecom domain expertise with Microsoft cloud AI capabilities, helps automate complex processes, improve consistency, and give customers faster access to the information they need to make informed decisions.” 

The agentic AI engine for pricing is expected to become available for use later this year.  

About Colt Technology Services 

We’re Colt. We own and operate exceptional digital infrastructure which powers the global AI economy, connects societies, builds communities and transforms lives. Thousands of colleagues in 65+ offices across Europe, Asia, and North America share a deep commitment to delivering an outstanding experience and making every interaction effortless for our customers. 

Customers and partners choose our award-winning fibre infrastructure, digital platforms and security solutions, delivered across a network that spans continents and crosses oceans. We’re Europe’s largest B2B operator: we connect 40+ countries, 32,000 enterprise buildings, 275+ points of presence, and 12 cable landing stations and we manage eight subsea cable systems. We also co-manage AS3356 – the most widely peered network in the world. 

Founded in London over 30 years ago, we’re privately funded and driven by values of fairness, inclusion and equity. We’re known for our urgent call for social and sustainable change and we’re guided by our purpose in everything we do: creating effortless connections and extraordinary outcomes for our customers, communities and people. Be a part of our story: come on over to www.colt.net  or join our amazing communities at LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. Media enquiry? Email us at pressqueries@colt.net.  

You can meet Colt at Submarine Networks EMEA, in London on the 27th – 28th May 2026. Get your ticket HERE

Viewpoint 

The future is federated sovereignty, says Aaron Boasman-Patel of TM Forum. Learn what that means for you, from concept to architecture

By Aaron Boasman-Patel, VP, Innovation, TM Forum

Over the years, digital sovereignty was defined by borders. That mindset increasingly feels outdated and is being challenged as perceptions evolve behind how it is understood and exercised.

Across Europe, narratives of a “failing concept” and “falling behind” are gaining traction, signaling the need for organizations to move faster and strengthen the strategic position on how they manage and organize data.

It’s no longer feasible for every country to build a fully autonomous digital stack as the economics don’t add up and operational risks are high. And today’s networks, cloud, and AI systems are designed to interconnect, not isolate. These realities are forcing us to rethink what sovereignty means in a hyper-connected world. Europe is already moving in this direction with initiatives like Gaia‑X and the EU Digital Networks Act, signaling a shift from isolation to interoperability and system‑level coordination.

The future is federated sovereignty. This is where connectivity is organized around regional alliances, common standards, and shared trust frameworks that enable interoperability while keeping control of critical assets local.

From concept to architecture

Federated sovereignty means evolving into a framework of collaboration and shared responsibility rather than nationally isolated control. Initiatives such as Gaia‑X signal this shift at a policy and framework level, setting common rules for interoperability and trust across borders and moving sovereignty away from isolation and toward system‑level coordination.

Increasingly, federated sovereignty is being expressed through technical architecture. Sovereign cloud implementations such as the AWS European Sovereign Cloud illustrate how sovereignty can be enforced through technical controls, operational separation, and European governance while still participating in global cloud and AI ecosystems. Rather than fragmenting infrastructure, this approach enables interoperability by design while keeping control of critical assets local.

For telecom operators, this evolution brings both responsibility and opportunity. When sovereignty is no longer just about ownership, it becomes an issue of control, assurance, and verifiability in a world of disaggregated networks, cloud‑native infrastructure, and AI‑driven operation. Operators must answer fundamental questions in real time: Where is data processed and trained? Who controls decision-making systems? How are policies enforced? And how can outcomes be audited?

Governance and leadership in a federated world

Artificial intelligence accelerates the challenge. As networks move toward intent‑driven and autonomous operation, sovereignty shifts from physical hardware to adaptive software, policy, and model governance from manual configuration to cognitive automation.

To manage this, leadership models must evolve. Sovereignty spans networks, IT, AI, cloud, data, security, and regulation; it cannot sit solely within compliance or legal. It requires ongoing oversight, clear decision rights, and joined‑up leadership across technology, policy, and operations. Many organizations are formalizing this through introduction of a ‘Chief Sovereignty Officer’ function or equivalent operating model that unites governance, architecture, and operational assurance.

Telcos as architects of cloud sovereignty

What do telcos need to do, to ensure they are serving the needs of customers prioritizing sovereignty? Primarily, collaboration between telcos and cloud providers is essential to deliver secure, compliant, and innovative services. Telcos bring unique strengths to this partnership: trusted relationships with governments and enterprises, operation of critical infrastructure, and deep regulatory expertise.

Meanwhile, hyperscale cloud providers offer advanced technology and scalability. Together, they can create interoperable solutions that meet stringent security and compliance requirements while opening new market opportunities.

Real-world progress is underway, and multi‑cloud resilience practices reduce single‑provider risk. TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture (ODA) and Level‑4 autonomous network capabilities advance observability, automation, and componentized networks, the essential foundation for sovereignty by design. Across geographies, operators and network infrastructure providers are recognizing that investment in autonomous network capabilities is key to control now and into the future. Which is why ODA and Level 4 autonomy play a pivotal role, providing operators the foundation to scale intelligent and sovereign networks.

Designed trust at scale

This year, those who lead the way will be those who embed sovereignty into architectures through policy-driven control, certification, continuous testing, and clear accountability. Something this critical should never be an afterthought. Risk-based resilience will be critical, including diversified routes and mediums such as fiber, subsea, and satellite networks, and tiered service continuity for emergency traffic.

The future of digital sovereignty is not fragmentation but designed trust at scale. Telecom operators sit at the center of that future, not just as connectivity providers but as custodians of controlled digital resilience.

Building sovereignty through collaboration

The path forward is shared. It is a commitment to federated sovereignty architectures rooted in open standards and shared assurance. It is an imperative to operationalize sovereignty with joint governance and runtime verification across multi‑cloud and multi‑network domains. It requires investment in observability, automation, auditability, and sovereign key management as core capabilities, not add‑ons.

By the end of this year, we expect to see those that lead on sovereignty to have made headway on four key milestones. These are:

1. Establishing a cross‑functional sovereignty council that brings together technology, legal, security, policy within the organization;
2. Defining and publishing sovereignty Service Level Objectives (SLOs) for data residency, model lineage, policy enforcement latency, auditability KPIs;
3. Completing pilot sovereign cloud landing zones with route diversity and traffic tiering;
4. And certifying model and data provenance for critical AI workflows.

Sovereignty built this way is verifiable, interoperable, and investable. It brings structure, clarity and control to an increasingly sensitive and mission critical organizational defense. Those who move first will define the standards, architectures, and trust models that others will follow.

Partner Article

Huawei unveils AI-native framework and new generation solutions to enable all intelligence 

The communications industry is entering a new phase of transformation, as operators move beyond basic automation towards building intelligent networks. Rising network complexity, surging data traffic and the rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across enterprises and consumer use cases are exposing the limitations of traditional operations models, which remain largely reactive and fragmented.  

At the recently concluded MWC Barcelona 2026, Huawei outlined its vision for this shift, unveiling what it describes as the industry’s first AI-native framework for intelligent operations, alongside a new suite of solutions designed to accelerate the transition. The announcement is in line with a broader industry trend, where telecom operators are increasingly looking to leverage AI across the entire network lifecycle, from Operations and Maintenance (O&M) to customer engagement and monetisation. 

According to Capgemini, telcos have, on average, achieved a 20% improvement in operational efficiency and 18% reduction in operational expense through autonomous networks over a period of two years. While telcos are increasingly using AI to automate networks, the rise of AI-powered tools and applications is placing new demands on network performance and reliability.  

President of Huawei’s Global Technical Service, Bruce Xun, announced the launch of three solutions, Agentic BSS, SmartCare Intelligence and AUTINOps, which he believes will “ensure a seamless evolution while establishing new paradigms, creating new value, and achieving a massive leap in intelligence.” He was speaking in a session on Agentic Services and Software Enable All Intelligence.  

These solutions are based on an AI-native framework, which is “designed to accelerate the transition of AI innovations into real production, creating tangible new value,” said Xun.  

This framework is built on three core pillars. To begin with, it targets operational and business challenges that legacy solutions have failed to resolve. Secondly, it leverages digital twins and telecom-domain models to enable optimal solutions. Thirdly, the framework reinvents workflows and talent development to ensure a seamless collaboration between human experts and digital employees. 

A key challenge for service providers today is that traditional operations models remain largely reactive.  The tariff design and launch process is slow, and may not meet customer needs or effectively recommend the right products at the right time. 

In this context, Agentic BSS focuses on transforming business operations by introducing AI agents that can interpret customer intent, design new offerings and optimise customer engagement. By enabling collaboration between multiple agents, service providers can significantly reduce time-to-market and deliver more personalised services. 

“The key to intelligent operations lies in our ability to anticipate customer intent and identify unmet needs,” said Xun. This shift towards intent-driven operations is particularly relevant as operators expand into enterprise services and digital ecosystems, where responsiveness and customisation are critical.  

Huawei received a Silver award in the Total Experience category for its collaboration with a Chinese operator, where AI-driven account management agents were introduced. These digital assistants improved response times, reduced business processing time by 30%, and enhanced enterprise customer engagement. 

Reimagining network optimization  

While business transformation is one aspect, network operations remain central to the AI-native vision. SmartCare Intelligence, another solution introduced by Huawei, is designed to move network optimisation from a reactive to a predictive model. By leveraging large AI models, including User Experience Large Model (UELM) and Beam Space Large Model (BSLM), the system can analyse network data in real time, simulate potential scenarios and generate optimal adjustments. This approach ensures that the networks are always tuned to deliver optimal performance. This is significant because service providers are struggling with growing network complexity. AI-driven systems can help them provide consistent service quality.  

Towards predictive and preventive operations 

The third pillar of Huawei’s portfolio, AUTINOps, focuses on Operations and Maintenance (O&M), introducing a predictive approach to network reliability. 

Traditional O&M models often respond to faults after they occur, leading to service disruptions and longer recovery times. AUTINOps addresses this by identifying potential risks in advance and taking preventive action. It uses a cross-domain digital twin network and EDNS 2.0 model to monitor networks in real time, detect risks and trigger recovery actions. It combines proactive risk mitigation (T-1) with quick fault recovery (T0) to ensure “dual protection,” leading to high uptime and network reliability.  

Huawei’s approach is beginning to see validation in real-world deployments. At the World Communication Awards (WCA), the company received a Silver award for Best Digital Transformation Programme for its work with a Middle Eastern operator, where it implemented an AI-driven O&M system focusing on fault management and resource topology optimization. Based on the AUTIN platform, the solution enabled over 95% topology visibility across VoWiFi access points, LTE anchor points and IMS core network elements. It delivered measurable improvements, including service availability exceeding 99.5%, a 40% reduction in call drop rates, and significant gains in fault detection and repair times. 

Xun emphasized the importance of robust connectivity, without which AI remains an information silo. He urged the industry leaders to standardize definitions and specifications of AI native elements, jointly design new business and transaction models and to share best practices to simplify network operations while ensuring improved performance.