Alibaba Cloud said on Tuesday it has launched a new public cloud region in Johor, Malaysia backed by two new data centres to meet the country’s growing demand for cloud and AI services – particuarly agentic AI.

The new facilities in Johor offer cloud computing products from compute, storage, container, networking, big data, security, and databases to cloud-native services.

Alibaba Cloud said it also plans to introduce a suite of agentic AI services to Malaysia in the second half of this year to meet growing demand for enterprise agents in the region.

Agentic AI products planned for launch in Malaysia include AgentRun, a one-stop intelligent agent development and build platform; STAROps, a comprehensive intelligent operations platform; ACS Agent Sandbox, which provides hardware-level security isolation while reducing operational costs of AI agents; Agent Security Center, an integrated defence platform for AI agents; AI Security Guardrails 2.0, an upgraded security solution with end-to-end risk detection capabilities; and Agentic SOC, an enterprise-grade, AI agent-driven security operations platform.

Alibaba Cloud said the new products are designed to streamline the building and running of enterprise-scale agents in a secure environment, providing enterprises with full cycle management of agent engineering.

Alibaba Cloud has been operating in Malaysia since 2017. The launch of Johor region and its two data centres brings Alibaba Cloud’s total data centre footprint in Malaysia to five facilities, which marks its largest infrastructure presence in Southeast Asia so far, said Choong Hon Keat, GM of Malaysia for Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.

“This expansion in Malaysia is a direct response to surging customer demand as local businesses scale cloud-native operations and integrate AI at scale,” he said in a statement. “Our new data centres in Johor will enable us to deliver more resilient, low-latency services, helping companies innovate faster, scale securely, and operate with greater efficiency in the AI era.”

Including Johor, Alibaba Cloud’s global infrastructure now comprises 104 availability zones across 32 regions.

The Johor facility is part of Alibaba’s previously announced plan in February 2025 to invest US$53 billion globally in AI and cloud infrastructure. In August last year, the company launched its third data centre in Malaysia whilst also announcing plans to expand its presence in Southeast Asia with new data centres in Malaysia and the Philippines.

Press Release

Orange today announced that it has completed the acquisition of the 50% stake in MasOrange held by Lorca, its joint venture partner in Spain. The Group now owns 100% of the operator’s capital and will fully consolidate MasOrange’s results in its financial statements from going forward.

This transaction follows the  signing of a binding agreement with Lorca on 12 December 2025, under which Orange agreed to acquire full ownership of MasOrange for a cash consideration of €4.25 billion. Since then, Orange has obtained all the necessary approvals for the transaction to be completed, including from the European Commission.

A key milestone in the Group’s strategy in Spain

Christel Heydemann, Chief Executive Officer of the Orange group, said: “Acquiring full ownership of MasOrange is a strategic step of our Trust the future plan and strengthens Orange’s position in Spain, our second-largest market in Europe. It paves the way for accelerated industrial, operational and commercial synergies, supporting greater value creation. With full ownership comes full agility, MasOrange can now move at full speed backed by the strength and scale of the Orange group.”

Meinrad Spenger, Chief Executive Officer of MasOrange, added: “By becoming fully part of the Orange group, MasOrange now has an even stronger foundation for future growth. It will allow us to accelerate our momentum in the Spanish market, supported by a greater capacity for investment and innovation as well as global expertise. This is good news for the Spanish consumers, enterprises and public administrations, since we will continue to provide them high-quality and innovative services, while benefiting from the Orange group’s industrial strength and scale to create even more value in Spain.”

As a follow-up to this transaction, Meinrad Spenger will join the Orange group’s Executive Committee. This appointment reflects the strategic importance of Spain for the Group and will further leverage his recognized experience in the telecommunications market and his leadership in advancing MasOrange’s development.

MasOrange is currently the leading operator in the Spanish market by customer base and customer satisfaction. At the end of the first quarter of 2026, it had 26 million mobile customers and 7.1 million fixed broadband customers. MasOrange relies on the most advanced leading fiber and 5G mobile infrastructure, enabling it to provide high-quality connectivity and other innovative services across the country to meet the needs of public administrations, consumer and business customers.

After closing, the Group intends to refinance MasOrange financial debt over time.

Four bits of expansion news from around the industry over in Europe: … [visit site to read more]

Telecom Namibia has signed its second open-access fibre deal in the past week – this one with fibre infrastructure provider Lightstruck – as part of its ongoing plan to accelerate its fibre broadband business and replace its fixed copper network.

Under the partnership deal announced Monday, Telecom Namibia will lease Lightstruck’s open-access fibre network to deliver high-speed internet services to residential and business customers.

The partnership follows a fully managed, opex-based model, where services will be provisioned and managed through Lightstruck’s service portal. Telecom Namibia said this will streamline operations and enhance the customer experience while also enabling the telco to extend its service footprint.

“Through this collaboration, we are embracing infrastructure sharing as a strategic approach to avoid duplication of efforts, fast-track network deployment, and improve overall efficiency in the sector,” said Telecom Namibia CEO Dr Stanley Shanapinda in a statement. “We are confident that this partnership will significantly strengthen our ability to provide reliable broadband solutions and contribute meaningfully to Namibia’s digital transformation.”

It’s the second such fibre leasing deal signed by Telecom Namibia in the past week. Last Thursday, the telco announced it will lease Demshi’s network to provide fibre broadband services, with Demshi being responsible for network deployment, maintenance, and installation of passive fibre infrastructure.

Both deals have been pitched as part of Telecom Namibia’s 2025/26 annual operating plan, which aims to accelerate fibre rollout and digital transformation. The telco also said the Lighstruck and Demshi partnerships will help replace its fixed copper network, which has been plagued by copper theft and vandalism, resulting in frequent service disruptions.

“At a time when copper theft remains a daily occurrence and continues to disrupt services, the transition to fibre strengthens the resilience and reliability of our network infrastructure,” Shanapinda said.

Telecom Namibia has been under fire amid customer complaints of service interruptions and slower network performance in certain areas. Apart from copper theft, the telco has blamed its poor network performance on aging infrastructure, hardware failures on critical network systems and instability on certain international connectivity routes.

In May, Telecom Namibia kicked off an extensive network modernisation programme that includes implementing a converged FMC core, developing a next-generation OSS/BSS platform, upgrading backup power systems, and deploying advanced firewalls to safeguard customer data.

Telecom Namibia said it will complete key phases of its network modernisation programme by June 2027.

News

The vehicle will target startups across North America, Asia, and Europe to accelerate the commercial ecosystem for all-photonics networks

Japan’s largest telco, NTT, is preparing to create an investment fund worth roughly $500 million to support the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) initiative and related AI development, according to reports from Yomiuri Shimbun.

South Korea’s SK Group, Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom, and the Development Bank of Japan are reportedly partners in the ‘IOWN AI Fund’.

More than 10 additional Japanese corporations – spanning tech giants like Toshiba, Sony, and Fujitsu, alongside major financial institutions including MUFG, SMBC, and Mizuho – have also expressed intent to participate.

The ‘IOWN AI Fund’, which will be set up by the end of the month, aims to expand IOWN’s growing ecosystem and the AI infrastructure supporting it. This will be achieved by targeting tech startups across North America, Asia, and Europe, focusing on photoelectric fusion, AI semiconductors, and the development of next-generation, IOWN-native AI models.

The concept of IOWN was introduced by NTT in 2019, with the central premise of shifting telco network topology from electronics to photonics (i.e., data transmission via light rather than electricity).

Currently, typical backbone networks carry optical signals over fibre but are forced to convert these photonic signals into electrical signals for processing. IOWN envisions an end-to-end optical network that would remove this translational bottleneck, delivering major benefits like lower power consumption, higher speeds, and larger capacity.

As generative AI data centres place unprecedented strain on global energy grids, it should be no surprise that the IOWN initiative is gaining momentum.

Indeed, IOWN is already beginning to show signs of moving from technical R&D to commercial scaling. In 2024 deployment by NTT and Chunghwa Telecom successfully activated a 3,000km subsea IOWN link between Japan and Taiwan, achieving a one-way latency of just 17 milliseconds.

By leveraging a formidable cross-border alliance of East Asian telecom, semiconductor, and financial giants, the IOWN AI fund is betting all-photonic network architecture will be a major alternative to traditional network strategy in the not-so-distant future.

How is AI supercharging the UK’s digital economy? Join the discussions at Connected Britain 2026

Also in the news
TELUS and L-SPARK give Canadian startups access to AI supercomputer
Belden to acquire RUCKUS Networks for $1.85bn
VMO2 taps Suffolk solar farm for 10 years of clean energy

A few interesting tidbits from around the industry: … [visit site to read more]

Pakistan telco Jazz says it has launched an IoT weather monitoring station at its headquarters in Islamabad that uses AI-driven analytics to transform real-time weather observations into actionable insights.

Billed as a “hyper-local” weather monitoring station, the platform is connected to Jazz’s mobile network and captures real-time environmental data, including temperature, humidity, rainfall, wind speed and direction, and barometric pressure.

At the weather monitoring station’s launch last Wednesday, JazzWorld CEO Aamir Ibrahim said the platform will support the telco’s operational planning, sustainability management and environmental monitoring, as well as showcase how technology, connectivity, and data can support smarter decision-making.

“As weather patterns become increasingly unpredictable, access to accurate, hyper-local data becomes more important than ever,” Ibrahim said in a statement. “Better local data can support better forecasting, better forecasting can support better preparedness, and better preparedness can help build more resilient communities.”

Ibrahim added that the initiative reflects the growing importance of hyper-local weather intelligence in Pakistan, which is increasingly exposed to climate-related risks, including floods, heatwaves, droughts, and extreme rainfall events. Access to localized environmental data can play an important role in climate adaptation to boost forecasting, preparedness, and resilience.

Jazz plans to share data generated by the station with the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) to complement its weather observation and forecasting efforts. Jazz said the platform is also designed to support additional capabilities such as air quality and UV radiation monitoring.

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Mike Tapp, Head of Finance at LiquidStack

Not a week goes by without news of yet another super-massive data center being planned, proposed, or built. The headlines are filled with eye-watering figures around size, cost, capacity, and aggressive timelines. But while big numbers are a good way to attract eyeballs, one of the figures that matters most to today’s data center operators is rarely reflected in today’s headlines. … [visit site to read more]

Ooredoo announced its latest spinoff on Thursday with the launch of Al Abraj, a new standalone company that will independently operate and manage Ooredoo Qatar’s passive tower infrastructure assets in the country.

The launch follows the receipt of the necessary regulatory approvals from the Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) and other government agencies, and marks the first operational carve-out under Ooredoo’s TowerCo initiative, a key part of Ooredoo’s broader portfolio optimisation strategy.

Ooredoo also announced that it has appointed Khalid Barzak as General Director of Al Abraj. Khalid has held leadership roles in the telecoms sector for the past 16 years. In Ooredoo Group, he has held senior leadership positions spanning telecoms, digital services, investments and partnerships.

 Ooredoo credited Khalid with playing a key role in driving the growth and turnaround of Ooredoo’s digital services and partnerships businesses, which are now meaningful contributors to the group’s profitability.

“Khalid will lead Al Abraj through its next phase of development, focusing on operational excellence, value creation and supporting the long-term growth of Ooredoo’s tower infrastructure platform,” Ooredoo said in a release.

The spinoff of Ooredoo’s passive tower infrastructure business is the latest move by the company to spin off its business units following the carve-out of its regional data centre operations last year. The resulting entity, Syntys, currently operates active data centres in Qatar, Tunisia, Kuwait, Oman and Iraq.

Earlier this year, Ooredoo announced plans to spin off its international connectivity and subsea cable infrastructure business into a new independent company called Ooredoo Fibre Networks (OFN), which is expected to be completed sometime in 2027.

Indian telco Vodafone Idea (Vi) announced on Thursday it has launched silent mobile verification (SMV) capabilities for users of Meta’s WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, which promises to make it simpler and more secure to use them.

SMV is a network-based authentication technology that uses network APIs to verify a user’s mobile number in the background without requiring manual entry of verification credentials, switching between apps, or waiting for verification messages.

For Vi subscribers, this means that whenever they access WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram using Vi’s network, the verification request is validated through the network itself, delivering a faster and frictionless experience.

Vi said this translates into a smoother and easier experience for scenarios like new user registration, mobile number verification, login and re-login, account recovery, and authentication during security checks. For Vi, this means faster onboarding, fewer manual steps, and enhanced protection against phishing and digital identity risks.

Vodafone Idea CEO Abhijit Kishore said that network-based verification technologies like SMV are emerging as important enablers to improve trust in digital services in India, where scam and fraud prevention have become serious issues.

“Telecom networks are increasingly playing an important role in enabling safer digital experiences. With millions of consumers relying on Vi’s secure telecom network every day, we can build these experiences on a scale,” Kishore said in a statement. “Through our partnership with Meta, we are enabling SMV capabilities that enhance cyber safety and reduce fraud risks, while creating seamless authentication experiences for users across some of the country’s most widely used digital platforms.”          

Vi said it plans to expand network-based verification in the future across additional applications and ecosystem partners, as well as other trust-based use cases, including enhanced authentication, fraud prevention and intelligent risk- based verification solutions.