5G connected cars are expected to be an increasingly hot item for India’s smart-device consumers next year as new models include 5G IoT connectivity and onboard GenAI as default technologies, says a new research report.

According to Techarc’s India Connected Consumer Report 2025, Indian consumers are still buying smart devices such as smart home appliances and smart speakers, but they aren’t using them much. On average 27% of respondents have stopped or reduced using at least one of the smart devices they own, usually due to poor user experience or perceived lack of value for money.

The study found that consumers are interested in spending money on devices that offer a better value proposition in terms of features, quality and experience, and one category currently generating the most interest is connected cars.

Around 55% of respondents said that they have come across news or information about smart/connected cars in recent times, while 73% said that smart/connecvity features will be either an “extremely important” or “important influence on their next car purchase, the report said.

According to Techarc, all of the 22 automobile OEMs in India have centred their core strategies around connected cars. Starting next year, passenger cars launched in India will offer 5G IoT connectivity, onboard GenAI, cloud connectivity and multiple displays across different price segments. Most cars priced INR2 million (around US$23,700) and above will feature 5G connectivity and GenAI by default.

Techarc expects telematics, vehicle maintenance, audio/video conferencing and infotainment apps to be the big early use cases for connected cars in India.

“With connectivity and the technologies it brings to the cars, the future of automobile sector will be fundamentally determined by the auto-technologies that will influence the overall experience, performance, comfort, safety and entertainment available to the drivers as well as the passengers,” said Techarc auto-tech sector analyst Sadat Ahanger. “So far, such features were seen as luxury or high-end experiences. But starting 2025, many of these will become mainstream for cars in India.”

The Techarc report also said India’s connected car segment could turn the country into the largest 5G IoT market in the world in next two to three years, as the local automotive sector is leapfrogging 4G in favor of 5G, which is available in most populated areas across the country.

The report is promising news for telcos looking for new 5G monetisation opportunies, including connected cars. Last month, Bharti Airtel’s B2B arm Airtel Business launched a partnership with automaker Kia India to provide IoT connectivity solutions for its next-gen connected-car platform, Kia Connect 2.0.

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Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and Indonesian tech firm GoTo Gojek Tokopedia said on Thursday they have begun work on Sahabat-AI, an open-source large language model (LLM) ecosystem specifically designed for Bahasa Indonesia and other local languages.

Indosat said Sahabat-AI will enable Indonesians to build AI-based services and applications in Bahasa Indonesia and various local languages, which will preserve essential cultural and linguistic nuances and understanding local context, which global AI models don’t support.

“By operating in Bahasa Indonesia, Sahabat-AI addresses critical context and cultural reference gaps left by the global large language models,” said GoTo CEO Patrick Walujo.

The Sahabat-AI model has been trained by AI Singapore and Tech Mahindra using Nvidia’s full-stack AI platform. In its first phase of development, Sahabat-AI will launch with 8-billion and 9-billion parameter LLMs.

Indosat – which signed a collaboration MoU with Nvidia earlier this year –  said it will support ongoing development of Sahabat-AI’s family of models using Lintasarta’s recently launched GPU Merdeka sovereign AI cloud service, which features Nvidia Hopper-based accelerated computing.

Adoption of Sahabat-AI will focus initially on chatbots, which present the most obvious and immediate use cases for local-language AI models.

For example, Indosat said Sahabat-AI will enable its existing AI chatbot to answer queries in the Indonesian language for various citizen and resident services. That chatbot is also part of a broader citizen services platform that Tech Mahindra and Insodat are developing as part of the Indonesian government’s sovereign AI initiative.

GoTo said it’s adopting and enhancing the Sahabat-AI models to integrate with its AI voice assistant “Dira”, which helps customers book rides, order food deliveries, transfer money and pay bills.

Indosat said it is also collaborating with Accenture to develop applications based on Sahabat-AI for industry-specific use cases such as financial services and energy under a partnership announced in September.

Indosat and GoTo said they plan to develop Sahabat-AI as an open ecosystem comprising research institutes, universities, media organizations, government agencies, and other partners to bring local and international expertise to the project. University of Indonesia, Gadjah Mada University, Bandung Institute of Technology, and Bogor Institute of Agriculture are already onboard, as well as media groups Republika and Kompas Group.

Healthcare AI company Hippocratic AI, which has developed a healthcare-focused LLM for digital chatbot agents, will incorporate the new Sahabat-AI models into its services for Indonesia residents.

Indosat president director and CEO Vikram Sinha described Sahabat-AI as a necessary step to make AI more widely accessible to everyone in Indonesia. “By creating an AI model that speaks our language and reflects our culture, we empower every Indonesian to harness advanced technology’s potential.”

GoTo’s Walujo added that an ecosystem approach was the only way to fulfil that vision is with the support of others. “This is why we are inviting stakeholders from all sectors to join the development of this important open-source LLM ecosystem as we aim to drive the country forward together.”

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Operator MTN South Africa and leading tech vendor Huawei say that they have completed the first 5.5G network trial in South Africa at the MTN head office in Johannesburg.

During the trial, MTN South Africa used Huawei’s SingleRAN ultra-wideband active-antenna units and applied hybrid beam-forming architecture in conjunction with flexible dynamic beam management and inter-FR carrier aggregation technologies.

Spectrum resources in the millimetre wave and C-band, using spectrum obtained through a trial licence, were used on site in 5G standalone mode.

MTN says it achieved an ultra-high-speed experience of 8.6 Gb/s to a user.

A 5.5G network has ten times network performance compared to current 5G technology, massively improving connection speeds, the number of Internet of Things connections and latency, but doing so with less energy consumed on a per terabyte basis.

MTN South Africa CTO Rami Farah, quoted by Engineering News, says: « The 10 Gb experience will expand new commercial services for consumers, households, and enterprises, accelerating the development of advanced use cases such as 24K extended reality, high-speed fixed wireless access, holographic conferencing, and enhanced 5G private networks, among others. »

This is the latest in a number of recent partnerships between these two companies. In late October MTN and Huawei completed the world’s first commercial deployment of the innovative SDB IBT 2D microwave solution in Johannesburg, a breakthrough solution that leverages super dual band (SDB) and two-dimensional intelligent beam tracking (IBT 2D) to prevent pole shaking from affecting link stability in dual-band scenarios.

We also reported in June that MTN and Huawei had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for strategic cooperation on Net5.5G, the so-called next generation of IP networks.

In addition, MTN parent company MTN Group announced in April that it had inaugurated a Technology Innovation Lab in partnership with Huawei Technologies.

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UAE-based operator Etisalat by e& and Mauritius-based digital infrastructure provider WIOCC say they have formed a strategic partnership to integrate their subsea networks to accelerate growth of Africa’s hyperscaler ecosystem.

According to a joint statement released Tuesday, e& and WIOCC said the partnership aims to broaden their market presence and strengthen their respective capabilities to meet increasing demand from customers for scalable, resilient, and low-latency connectivity solutions.

The partnership also opens up new avenues for growth in underserved and emerging markets across various parts of Africa, including the eastern and southern regions where the majority of hyperscalers currently operate, said WIOCC group chief operating officer Ryan Sher.

“WIOCC’s carrier-grade infrastructure, combined with our deep local knowledge and vast regional footprint, allows us to deliver tailored, high-capacity connectivity solutions that supports the complex needs of telcos and hyperscalers,” he said.

The announcement came the same day that WIOCC’s data centre subsidiary Open Access Data Centres (OADC) announced the imminent launch of Open Access Fabric (OAfabric), its open digital interconnection platform that will establish interconnection hubs across Africa to address escalating demand for advanced interconnection services. OADC said the platform will launch initially in Nigeria and the DRC in January 2025.

Meanwhile, Nabil Baccouche, group chief carrier and wholesale officer for e&, said that the tie-up with WIOCC – which currently supplies high-capacity connectivity between more than 30 African countries – will boost e&’s presence in Africa, as well as enhance to its global reach that currently spans 38 markets in Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Central & Eastern Europe.

“By combining e&’s carrier-grade infrastructure, global reach from Asia to Europe via the Middle East, and regional expertise, we offer tailored, high-capacity connectivity solutions for telcos and hyperscalers,” he said. “Our Smarthub edge data centres, featuring AI-grade capabilities, further enhance this offering.”