News

The plastic waste removed is the equivalent weight of five double decker buses 

UK mobile operator Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) has announced that it has successfully removed 65 tonnes of single-use plastic from its operations and products since 2021. 

The effort is part of the company’s Better Connections Plan, which broadly commits to ensuring the business operates in a sustainable and ethical way. One of the plan’s primary aims to achieve zero waste operations and products by the end of 2025. 

In partnership with engineering company Technetix, VMO2 has removed almost 18 tonnes of single-use plastic from the equipment and tools used by engineers. This includes eliminating plastic bags, foam, blister packs, and plastic straps from packaging. The company has also replaced plastic ties with paper ties on cables. 

Collaborating with logistics firm GXO, the company has also reduced single-use plastic from packaging containing products sent to cable customer by 94%. 

Additionally, adopting plastic-free packaging for product delivery and returns has allowed the company to prevent approximately 22 tonnes of single-use plastic going to waste each year. 

“GXO and Virgin Media O2 are working together to create a supply chain that is as environmentally responsible as it is efficient and reliable,” said Meagan Fitzsimmons, GXO’s Chief Compliance and ESG Officer in a press release. 

“Companies have to reduce single use plastics from their supply chain to meet regulatory requirements and environmental goals. These results show what’s possible with a best-in-class partnership,” she continued. 

In related news, this week it was revealed that VMO2 was one of three operators (in addition to Three and Vodafone), who had their plea for a deadline extension of the first phase of the Shared Rural Network (SRN) denied by the UK government. 

Dean Creamer, the head of Building Digital UK (the government body overseeing the project) confirmed this week that the authority has denied a request by the three mobile operators to delay the first phase deadline by 18 months.  

The current deadline to remove all ‘partial not-spots’ is in June. Only EE, the UK’s largest operator, met this deadline so far, doing so in January. Last October, The Telegraph reported that Vodafone and Three in particular were operators were “miles behind” in the project, according to unnamed sources. 

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter  

Also in the news:
“We’ve out innovated China”: US Commerce Secretary slams Huawei chip tech
Uzbekistan’s Perfectum partners with Nokia for 5G
Meta shares tumble after Zuckerberg reveals AI spending increase    

Malaysia’s wholesale 5G operator Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB) announced on Thursday that it has appointed new members to its board, whose first mission will be to finalise stakeholder ownership details and review DNB’s due diligence findings.

The five new board members represent Telekom Malaysia, Maxis, U Mobile, YTL and CelcomDigi’s Infranation, all of whom signed share subscription agreements (SSAs) in December 2023 to collectively take a 70% stake in DNB, with each taking a 14% stake, while the Minister of Finance (MOF) will hold the remaining 30% as well as a “special share”.

Joining the DNB board are Datuk Kamal Khalid (chief transformation officer from CelcomDigi), Uthaya Kumar K Vivekananda (independent director of Maxis), Chang Yit Fei (director of U Mobile), Nik Azli Abu Zahar (group counsel for Telekom Malaysia) and Datuk Seri Yeoh Seok Hong (MD of YTL Power International).

They will serve on the DNB board alongside incumbent board members, treasury secretary general Datuk Johan Mahmood Merican and Digital Ministry deputy secretary Ma Sivanesan Marimuthu, DNB said in a statement. All appointments took effect on April 24.

According to The Edge Malaysia, Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo said in a statement on Thursday that the new DNB board is already planning to convene a meeting to discuss the remaining details to finalise the “condition precedents” that have to be settled before the SSAs can take effect. He also said the board will review “due diligence findings”.

Last week, a report from Channel News Asia, citing anonymous sources, claimed that negotiations over the details of the SSAs have stalled over disagreement on the condition precedents, as well as the appointment of board directors and the completion of three independent confidential audits on DNB.

The report also claimed that the due diligence reviews that would help telcos decide whether to stay in DNB or move to the government’s planned second 5G operator were still ongoing, despite originally being expected to be completed in January. The report also claimed that telcos were concerned over DNB’s alleged lack of internal transparency regarding supply tenders.

DNB firmly denied that the SSA negotiations have broken down. It also denied claims that it has not been transparent in its internal operations or tender processes.

News

The parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp is increasing spending to become a global AI leader 

This week, Meta released its Q1 earnings report, in which the company announced a heavy increase on AI spending, and confirmed its plan to turn the group into “the leading AI company in the world”. 

Revenue for the quarter totalled $36.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 27% and just above analyst expectations ($36.2 billion). Total expenses reached $22.6 billion, a 6% increase. 

“It’s been a good start to the year — both in terms of product momentum and business performance,” said CEO mark Zuckerberg in the earnings call. 

Two key factors of the report appear to have worried investors, causing shares to plunge 15% in after-hours trading. 

Firstly, a weaker-than-expected Q2 revenue. Meta’s second-quarter revenue guidance fell short of analysts’ forecasts. The company expects overall sales to be between $36.5 billion and $39 billion, with the mid-point missing the estimated $38.2 billion. This cautious outlook has raised concerns about Meta’s ability to sustain its impressive performance so far. 

Secondly, Meta have announced an increase in AI spending, including AI training and high-computing chips in its data centres. Its capital expenditures for full-year 2024 are now projected to range from $35 billion to $40 billion, up from the previous estimate of $30 billion to $37 billion. 

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said this was so Meta can “continue to accelerate our infrastructure investments to support our AI roadmap”. While not providing expenditure guidance beyond this year, Zuckerberg noted that it is expected to increase as the company is set to “invest aggressively” in AI R&D to compete with rivals such as OpenAI and Microsoft. 

Last week, Meta released the latest version of Meta AI, which is powered by its latest model, Llama 3. In the earnings call, Zuckerberg confirmed that the “goal with Meta AI is to build the world’s leading AI service both in quality and usage.” The company believes that Meta AI is the most intelligent free AI assistant. 

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter 

Also in the news:
South Korea to invest $7 billion in AI semiconductors
Swisscom expands 5G partnership with Ericsson
Daisy Group set to acquire 4Com for £215m

Keep up-to-date with all the latest news, articles, event and product updates posted on Developing Telecoms.
Subscribe to our FREE weekly email newsletters for the latest telecom info in developing and emerging markets globally.

Thai telco True Corp has launched artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for local businesses as it seeks to increase the share of AI-driven revenue in its digital services business to 30% by 2027.

True says its AI solutions, which include virtual service agents, smart retail solutions and AI-powered content will enable businesses to leapfrog to AI.

“We aim to integrate digital services into consumer and business segments to bridge gaps, provide equal access to digital resources, and ensure technology is accessible, affordable and beneficial,” True’s chief digital officer Ekaraj Panjavinin said at a True event promoting its AI solutions this week.

True is also promoting its own internal adoption of AI as proof that its AI solutions deliver on their promise, with Ekaraj saying that the company aims to automate 100% of its repetitive processes using AI within the next three years.

“By leveraging the exceptional capabilities of AI, proficiency in processing, and analyzing extensive datasets, we are able to build AI-driven platforms which integrate data across various sources for deep analytics, providing actionable insights to expand businesses in various industries,” he said. “AI can thereby unlock new business models, increase competitiveness for sustainable business growth, and serve consumers’ needs in the digital era with hyper-personalized experiences, while also driving productivity enhancements and cost savings.”

Bandith Pangpong, True’s head of IT and Security, added that AI is being used by its teams to develop solutions more rapidly. “By using artificial intelligence, we can do in a few hours what used to take days or weeks.”

However, in order for its business customers to get the most out of True’s AI solutions, they’ll need serious reskilling to transform their culture to not just be digital-ready, but “AI-driven”, said True’s chief human resources officer Sarinra Wongsuppaluk.

“A lot of organizations in Thailand are potentially ‘AI-ready,’ meaning they do have some proprietary data and digital initiatives in place,” she said. “But to become ‘AI-first’ requires a change in culture from experience-based, leader-driven decision making to data-driven decision making at the front line.”

That change shouldn’t be limited to the IT department, but across the entire organizsation, she said, pointing to True’s AI-powered chatbot “Mari” as an example. Sarinra explained that the teams working on Mari are set up as agile squads across IT, analytics, customer experience, customer service and robotics.

All of this means change has to start at the top, Sarinra added. “AI-first organizations need a C-Suite that understands this new technology and is entrepreneurial enough to adopt it.”

News

The investment follows the company spending JPY20 billion ($129.2 million) on computing infrastructure last year 

Japanese tech giant SoftBank has announced that it will invest JPY 150 billion $960 billion to upgrade its computing infrastructure to deliver a Generative AI (gen AI) platform in the Japanese language, according to a report from Nikkei, which cited anonymous sources. 

Over the next two years, SoftBank will reportedly purchase GPUs (graphics processing units) from US based chip company Nvidia, using them to train and power its own large language models (LLMs), and then loan access to them to other firms. 

The investment in computing infrastructure is set to be the largest of any Japanese company, although SoftBank has not yet commented on the report. 

Last August, SoftBank invested JPY 150 million ($969 million) launched a new company, named ‘SB Institutions’, to research and develop homegrown LLMs that are specialised for the Japanese language. The company will ‘provide the necessary data sets and tools for LLM learning and develop models for reinforcement learning on SoftBank’s computing platform,” the press release reads. 

“By developing LLM specialized for the Japanese language, SB Intuitions can develop generative AI services tailored to the unique needs of Japan-based customers,” it continued. 

SB institutions is currently working on its own LLM, which is set to be completed this year. 

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter  

Also in the news:
South Korea to invest $7 billion in AI semiconductors
Swisscom expands 5G partnership with Ericsson
Daisy Group set to acquire 4Com for £215m

One of the more interesting subsea cable projects currently on the drawing board got a boost this morning. Confluence Networks has lined up an anchor tenant for the Confluence-1 cable system along the east coast of the US. Laser Light Communications Inc. has signed on for a 25-year agreement totaling over $20M for a piece of the system. … [visit site to read more]

Insight

Using her experience working in Venture Capital, Angel Investment and with startup businesses, Charlotte Scott, Senior Investor Relations Manager at Innovation SuperNetwork, works to improve the relationship between investors and businesses. 

Through her work in the Northern Investor Hub and on the Pathways to Funding North of Tyne and Tees Valley Securing Investment programmes, she builds bridges between businesses and investors, helping investors expand their portfolio, reach new opportunities, and connect with exciting businesses.  

Hear from Charlotte as she shares her key tips and advice on how to improve your business investor connectivity. 

Be Authentic. 

Transparency and authenticity are often missing when it comes to building long lasting investor business relationships. There’s a misconception that investors loom in the upper echelons of society. However, human stories will engage them, and authentic connections can be the basis of a very trusting and productive relationship.   

An investor will likely take a board seat in your business, so if you haven’t taken the time to build that trusting relationship where you can disclose key information, then they can’t help you make decisions and offer advice that could potentially save your company.  

Take the time to just get out there, network with investors and invest time nurturing those relationships. Treat them as humans and respect their time and opinions as you would anyone else. You’ve got to be able to have good communication and good interpersonal relationships. 

Expand and diversify your pool of connections. 

Working with start-ups in a variety of roles and regions has introduced me to a lot of underrepresented founders and communities that have – through no fault of their own – slipped through the access to funding net. And that was quite an eye opener. It was clear how much having access to business support could really transform their personal and professional situations.    

It’s generally acknowledged that we want to hang out with people who have similar interests. But if an investor is really committed to diversity and inclusion then they should be branching out, involving themselves with communities who are not from the same background, and welcome the diversity of opinion that comes with expanding our network beyond the familiar.   

Expanding your network allows you to come across such a range of people, ideas, and businesses. The nature of individuals operating businesses is that they’re ambitious and highly motivated – have a certain resilience and grit. It’s a wonderful thing to be surrounded by. 

Make sure your voice is heard. 

Get out there and start talking about yourself! If an investor needs to go to areas and break into communities who don’t look and sound like them, you’ve got to try and do the same.  

For example, put an event every week in your diary where you think investors might be and show up.  Don’t pitch in that informal environment but have a chat and start to build a positive relationship. That person will remember you as that interesting individual who they had a good chat with a couple of months ago, so they’ll be more receptive to start up a conversation and lend you a hand.   

Working with Innovation SuperNetwork. 

At Innovation SuperNetwork, we work with businesses access the finance they need, helping them to understand their options. 

We offer a programme of events, workshops, and one-to-one support to help you identify and apply for grants or loans. Our investor readiness programme steps in to make you pitch perfect and able to secure investment for growth.  

Through the Northern Investor Hub, we work closely with local and national partners, to bring experienced and budding investors together, identifying co-investment opportunities, and showcase the North’s most inspiring businesses. 

If you are an investor, find out more about the opportunities we can provide for you here.