This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Dario Betti, CEO, Mobile Ecosystem Forum
UK-based Gamma Communications is drawing the attention of several suitors; Providence Equity Partners is in talks, and there is also confirmed interest from Epiris and a consortium backed by Oakley Capital with Giacom. A takeover of Gamma—valued at about $1.2 billion—could impact partnerships, competition and investment across Europe’s business communications sector. … [visit site to read more]
From accelerating scientific discovery and advancing healthcare research to transforming public services, AI is becoming a critical driver of innovation and economic growth across the U.K. To help advance the next generation of AI infrastructure and AI-powered scientific breakthroughs, AMD, Dell Technologies and the University of Cambridge have announced plans to establish the new Sovereign AI Innovation Lab (SAIL) in the United Kingdom.
The initiative represents a major step forward in the U.K.’s ambition to build world-class AI capabilities while advancing open and interoperable AI technologies.
As nations increasingly view AI as a strategic capability, leadership will depend on access to advanced models and on the ability to combine AI, computing and scientific expertise to accelerate discovery, strengthen competitiveness and fuel economic growth.
The announcement of SAIL follows the recent expansion of the University of Cambridge’s AI Research Resource (AIRR) that includes deployment of the Zenith AI supercomputer. Powered by 5th Gen AMD EPYC™ processors and AMD Instinct™ MI355X GPU accelerators integrated into Dell infrastructure, Zenith can provide researchers and innovators with the advanced computing capabilities needed to support increasingly complex AI, simulation and scientific workloads.
Together, SAIL and Zenith will expand access to advanced AI and high-performance computing infrastructure for researchers, healthcare organizations, public-sector institutions and industry partners across the U.K.
As scientific and engineering challenges grow in complexity, access to advanced AI and high-performance computing resources becomes increasingly important. Systems such as Zenith provide researchers with the computational foundation needed to explore new approaches to discovery and innovation.
Hosted through the University of Cambridge Research Computing Service, SAIL can serve as a collaborative environment where organizations can evaluate, develop and deploy advanced AI technologies.
The lab is expected to support a broad range of applications across scientific research, healthcare, climate science, engineering, public services and national-scale AI initiatives. By bringing together technology leaders, researchers and public-sector stakeholders, SAIL aims to accelerate the adoption of AI while helping ensure deployments are secure, trusted and scalable.
A key focus of SAIL is the planned development of open and interoperable AI infrastructure built on AMD computing platforms, AMD ROCm™ software and cloud native technologies.
The lab will explore deployment models spanning AI training and inference, scientific foundation models, simulation-assisted AI workflows, trusted research environments and secure public-sector AI services. Through this work, SAIL aims to help organizations build AI capabilities with greater flexibility, interoperability and long-term choice.
SAIL is intended to work alongside Cambridge’s growing national AI infrastructure footprint, including the Zenith AI supercomputer and the Sunrise fusion AI system developed in partnership with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).
Together, these systems will support a diverse range of AI-for-science applications, including healthcare research, climate modelling, materials science, engineering simulation, fusion energy research and scientific AI model development.
Many of the world’s most important scientific challenges require more than AI alone. They depend on the convergence of artificial intelligence, simulation, data and high-performance computing to accelerate discovery and deepen scientific understanding. This emerging approach – often referred to as AI for Science – is creating new opportunities across healthcare, climate science, materials research, engineering and energy.
One of the most ambitious scientific efforts supported by this expanding AI ecosystem is fusion energy research.
Sunrise is a second Dell-AMD AI supercomputer being built now; funded by the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ), owned by UKAEA and operated by the University of Cambridge. Sunrise is part of a long standing UKAEA-University of Cambridge partnership and dedicated to the fusion mission.
Built on the same Cambridge-designed AMD and Dell architecture as Zenith, Sunrise is designed to help researchers tackle one of the world’s most complex scientific and engineering challenges: delivering fusion power capable of producing net-positive energy. The system also forms part of a broader effort to establish advanced AI capabilities at Culham Campus, home to the U.K.’s first AI Growth Zone.
As demand for AI continues to grow across research, industry and government, initiatives such as the Sovereign AI Innovation Lab demonstrate how open technology ecosystems and strategic partnerships can help unlock innovation at scale.
By bringing together advanced infrastructure, open software and scientific expertise, AMD, Dell and the University of Cambridge are helping to lay the foundation for the U.K.’s next era of AI-driven discovery and innovation.
Through Zenith, Sunrise and SAIL, artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and scientific research converge to accelerate discovery, strengthen competitiveness and help solve some of society’s most important challenges.
How is AI supercharging the UK’s digital economy? Join the discussions at Connected Britain 2026
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A mix of infrastructure products from around the industry: … [visit site to read more]
There is a shortage of high-quality teaching in schools across the globe, but a new, innovative model is equipping teachers with the tools they need to prepare the next generation of minds.
Huawei is working with education institutions to tackle inequality in the sector through the use of smart education solutions. These were recently unveiled at the company’s Global Smart Education Showcase, where the Chinese technology giant demonstrated its pilot project with Shenzhen Welkin School to over 100 education leaders from around the world.
Huawei and Shenzhen Welkin School have co-developed a centralised teaching model that allows schools to share teaching resources and instructional material. The ambition is simple but far-reaching: equal access to high-quality educational resources and enhance overall quality of education.
The need for such initiatives is urgent. According to UNESCO, there is a global shortage of qualified teachers and high-quality education. A 2024 report from the organisation highlights an “urgent need” for 44 million more primary and secondary teachers worldwide by 2030. Sub-Saharan Africa faces the steepest challenge, with a requirement for 15 million teachers in the next five years alone.
It is clear the shortage of teachers will reach a critical point as population numbers swell globally. Huawei and Shenzhen Welkin School’s cloud-based teaching model is aimed at tackling this, as well as other shortfalls such as uneven distribution of high quality educational resources and lack of interactivity in a traditional classroom.
This is the context in which Huawei and Shenzhen Welkin School’s partnership becomes significant. Their joint project aims to demonstrate how digital technology can mitigate educational inequalities in Shenzhen and potentially act as a blueprint for other regions.
Shenzhen Welkin School operates 26 schools across 11 districts, positioning it as a flagship institution for national pilot programmes in basic education reform. It is also a national-level hub for smart teaching innovation and a demonstration zone for China’s broader smart education ambitions.
Welkin was the first institution to adopt Huawei’s smart education solution. The set-up includes interactive whiteboards, cross-district communication and high-speed Wi-Fi 7, enabling the school to implement its much-praised 1+N teaching model.
Principal Gong Weidong describes the model as “One City, Two Companions, Three Collaborative Activities,” representing a fundamental rethink of how education is organised and delivered.
One City:
Two Companions:
Three Collaborative Activities:
In practice, the model means students are grouped across 80 classrooms that connect live to a central “headquarters” where lead teachers deliver lessons via a 4K video feed. Partner schools receive these lessons in real time, with assistant teachers on site to support students, answer questions, and provide the human touch where needed.
“This approach gives every student access to top-tier teaching,” Gong explained, “while also allowing our staff to make breakthroughs in teaching and research.” Assistant teachers also gain invaluable classroom experience, accelerating their professional development.
According to Gong, the model “enhances the teaching skills of assistant teachers while delivering finely-designed classes for every student in Shenzhen Welkin School. These innovations ensure the seamless flow and integration of high-quality resources, turning the vision of educational equality and development into reality. Recognition has already come from both the Chinese government and the wider global education community.”
The project’s success has not gone unnoticed. Shenzhen Welkin School was awarded the UNESCO Global Smart Education Innovation Award in 2024, affirming the value of its practices on the international stage.
Welkin’s headquarters is powered by the Huawei Education Campus Network which links it to partner schools through the Huawei Xinghe AI education metro network, providing 4K definition feeds between classrooms. Boundaries are also shifting for teachers. Huawei’s cloud-based, low-latency and high-bandwidth network – enables teachers to share teaching resources, co-develop lessons, conduct joint, as well as remotely teach students.
Such powerful infrastructure ensures “smooth and stable” live-streamed classes for thousands of students, and collaborative work between teachers, simultaneously.
Lead teachers deliver lessons using the Huawei IdeaHub – a 4K blue light-blocking smart screen – instead of the traditional whiteboard or chalkboard. Key points can be marked in real time while assistant teachers in satellite schools receive the updated content instantly.
Students are also active participants. They can join online debates, collaborate on virtual geometry models, and share work interactively – breaking down the traditional boundaries of the classroom.
To maintain this level of service, Huawei has deployed its iMaster NCE network management system, which visualises campus network status, provides real-time fault detection, and enables automatic optimisation. Problems that might otherwise disrupt a class can be resolved in minutes, often by one person who can manage a campus of 1,000 people.
“With a strong network foundation, intelligent collaboration tools, and intelligent O&M, Huawei lays a solid technical foundation for the cloud model to thrive,” Gong said.
The showcase at Huawei Connect signals a transition for smart education not simply a products showcase, but about proving technology that can tangibly improve access, equity, and teaching quality.
While China is scaling up smart education at pace through projects like Shenzhen Welkin School, similar efforts are under way in Europe – though often on a smaller scale and with different priorities.
One example is Italy’s Piccole Scuole (“Small Schools”) initiative, coordinated by the Indire research institute. Like Welkin’s 1+N model, it seeks to overcome inequalities in access to quality teaching, particularly in remote and rural areas. Small schools are digitally connected to share teachers, co-develop lessons, and provide students with access to specialist subjects they would otherwise miss. However, the focus in Italy is less on high-capacity infrastructure and more on fostering community participation and preserving local culture.
The European Commission’s broader Digital Education Action Plan emphasises inclusion and teacher digital skills, but it does not yet match the level of technical centralisation seen in Shenzhen. Instead, the EU prioritises interoperability and safeguarding student data across multiple vendors.
In comparison, Huawei and Shenzhen Welkin School’s model is notable for placing network infrastructure at the centre of education reform. The metropolitan area network connects districts across the city with low-latency optical fibre, while the campus network beams 10Gbps connectivity straight into classrooms. This delivers use cases and tools such as 4K remote teaching, cross campus collaboration and instant content sharing. Such a scale has yet to be seen in other parts of the globe.
But there are challenges for this model. A particular hurdle is the overreliance on a stable connectivity to ensure people are able to learn uninterrupted in case of a connection outage, be it from network issues or outlandish weather. There is also the digital divide between urban and rural locations, with people living in more remote locations that lack the necessary and expensive infrastructure to gain meaningful educations, particularly compared to the recent hyper development of Shenzhen from a mere fishing village in the 1980s to a booming metropolis. Teachers will also have to be trained to become more technologically literate to fully augment the new tools at their disposal to deliver the full potential of their teachings.
The challenges have been acknowledged and are currently being tackled. Welkin runs a teacher exchange programme to train those located in rural areas to provide that human touch which is still valued – as well as remote training.
On the network issue, Huawei maintains a high standard in terms of network resilience and its project with Welkin is fundamentally network focused, hence any form of downtime is rare and easily fixed.
The implications stretch beyond China. If scalable, models like Welkin’s could inspire other regions struggling with teacher shortages and resource inequalities – from rural schools in Asia to overburdened classrooms in Sub-Saharan Africa – and potentially make a lasting systemic difference.
China West Airport Group’s strategic vision is to build a first-class enterprise and set an industry benchmark. Centering on this vision, China West Airport Group will start from the third phase of the expansion and renovation of Xi’an Xianyang International Airport, focus on digital and intelligent transformation, and actively develop the AI-enabled digital twin of airport operational management.
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Xi’an, a world-famous cultural capital with a history spanning thousands of years, is undergoing profound transformation brought by technological innovation. The new Terminal 5 at Xi’an Xianyang International Airport, equipped with cutting-edge technologies, has turned the airport into a powerhouse, a catalyst for new growth in the region.
Founded in 2008, China West Airport Group (CWAG) is now the second largest airport management group in China. The group manages 18 airports in the provinces of Shaanxi, Ningxia, and Qinghai, forming an airport cluster with Xi’an Xianyang International Airport as the core, Yinchuan Hedong International Airport and Xining Caojiapu International Airport as the two wings, and 12 regional airports and 3 general airports as support. CWAG’s airports and traffic both account for more than 70% of the total volume in Northwest China.
CWAG is dedicated to becoming a top-tier, influential airport management group worldwide and a leading airport cluster in China. It strives to deliver air transport services that are connected, comprehensive, high-quality, and distinctive, and have core competitiveness in China.
During the third phase of the Xi’an Xianyang International Airport project, CWAG worked with Huawei to explore paths of intelligent transformation, and created the 4A concept—business architecture (BA), data architecture (DA), application architecture (AA), and technical architecture (TA). CWAG thoroughly assessed the airport’s current services, and set up a dedicated committee to manage architectures and standards. This ensured that the project followed all regulations and stayed consistent.
To support intelligent development, CWAG built an industry-leading digital and intelligent foundation based on the cloud platform. This foundation has three features:
Based on the digital and intelligent foundation, CWAG migrated all of its core systems to the cloud. During the third phase of its development, the Xi’an Xianyang International Airport migrated more than 60 systems to the cloud to improve system reliability and simplify O&M. In addition, the airport deployed more than 100P computing power to support over 35 AI algorithms and applications, laying the groundwork for intelligent transformation. The cloud architecture and experience gained during the project were then replicated and used at member airports, such as Yinchuan Hedong International Airport and Xining Caojiapu International Airport, culminating in a unified one-cloud, multi-pool platform with cohesive architecture and O&M.
High-quality data is the prerequisite for intelligent development. Based on its daily services, CWAG established a group-wide data management system and operational process specifications. The unified data standards cover more than 20,000 business fields across the entire group, ensuring data consistency and accuracy. In addition, the group built an AI data center to aggregate and manage data from more than 50 systems in Xi’an Xianyang International Airport, and implemented comprehensive data governance to ensure smooth data flow between systems. CWAG also developed more than 36 analysis topics and 500 indicators to extensively explore the value of data, providing data support for more than 30 service applications. This effectively improved the group’s operational efficiency and service quality, improving passenger experiences.
During the third phase of the Xi’an Xianyang International Airport project, CWAG built a digital airport and strategized to let the physical and digital airports co-evolve.
This brought the airport three new features:
First, panoramic perception. CWAG eliminated information silos by aggregating data from various service systems, and visualizing the dynamic data of flights, passengers, baggage, and transportation in real time.
Second, asset visualization. CWAG achieved transparent management of assets, such as devices and pipelines, by integrating the data of the phase one and phase two projects, and connecting all asset management systems.
Third, simulation and prediction. In the digital space, CWAG can simulate scenarios like flight transfers and extreme weather, assisting service decision-making.
As an airport that practices holistic airport management, CWAG uses the new platform to coordinate the operations of the airfield, terminal area, and public area. The platform integrates various data, supports the airport to shift from single-point efficiency improvement to overall quality optimization, and achieves a comprehensive balance between operations, safety, services, and benefits.
« With the completion of the third phase of the project, we can guarantee a flight punctuality rate exceeding 93% even amidst increasingly complex operational demands, » Chen Yu, General Manager of the Operations Control Center, Xi’an Xianyang International Airport Co., Ltd, said. « This is a 3 pp improvement over the previous level. The aircraft ground command system also has new functions, such as path planning, runway conflict warning, and simultaneous pushback. Operational data of the past six months suggests that the system shortened the average ground operational time by 1.3 minutes, achieving new records in energy saving, emission reduction, and efficiency improvement. »
By promoting intelligent development, the Xi’an Xianyang International Airport has significantly improved its operational efficiency, safety, and service quality.
Through the three phases of smart airport construction, the Xi’an Xianyang International Airport has achieved its goals of ensured safety and reliability, precise node control, efficient flight dispatch, and optimal service experiences. In this process, Huawei provided a full-stack digital and intelligent foundation, as well as consulting and planning services, and worked with partners to assist the airport in cloud migration, data utilization, and intelligent transformation. Xu Zhiyu, Vice President of Huawei Smart Transportation BU, said, « Based on years of experience in digital and intelligent transformation, Huawei provided consulting and planning services to help Xi’an Xianyang International Airport complete two integrations—integrating airport services with cloud and big data foundations, and project planning with technology implementation. »
CWAG’s intelligent transformation journey provides valuable insights for the industry.
For traditional industries, transformation is no longer optional, but a must. CWAG’s project building a digital and intelligent foundation to overhaul the Xi’an Xianyang International Airport set a new benchmark for the civil aviation sector, and offered a scalable model for intelligent transformation replication across other industries as well. By continuously integrating emerging technologies like AI and foundation models into its service systems, CWAG is working with its partners to jointly draw a blueprint for technological innovation, reshaping aviation hubs with intelligence, and forging a brighter digital and intelligent future.
Note: All data in this document originates from China West Airport Group.
For more details, please visit: https://e.huawei.com/en/case-studies/industries/aviation/202604-china-west-airport-group
India’s mobile operators are this week clashing with technology and automotive groups over the handling of the wireless spectrum crucial to delivering V2X services.
V2X technology – encompassing the wireless exchange of real-time data with other vehicles (V2V), road infrastructure (V2I), pedestrians (V2P), and mobile networks (V2N) – is expected to have a major impact on road safety, but its technical deployment is contentious.
Last month the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) initiated a consultation on a new V2X framework, hoping to create an environment supporting the rapid rollout of V2X technology. The regulators proposal includes the allocation of 30 MHz of 5.9GHz-band spectrum for initial Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) deployments, with an additional 20 MHz reserved for future Intelligent Transportation Systems.
This week, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), representing mobile operators Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea, has submitted a response to the consultation, arguing that the spectrum should be auctioned commercially, like traditional mobile spectrum, rather than specially allocated.
The operators broadly claim that the V2X services of the future will fundamentally rely on 4G and 5G, and so should be treated as typical mobile spectrum under the “same service, same rules” principle.
They also claim that the creation of a separate authorisation would result in the needless duplication of telecoms infrastructure, a process which is both expensive and inefficient.
However, this view runs contrary to those held by organisations like the Broadband India Forum (BIF) and the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), which argue that V2X technology is primarily focussed on public safety and thus warrants being allocated on a shared, non-exclusive basis. This, they claim, will allow for a faster rollout of the technology in key areas.
Indeed, the Indian government is highly motivated to clear the way for V2X’s deployment as soon as possible. India’s roads are some of the most dangerous in the world, seeing the equivalent of roughly one death every three minutes in 2023.
As TRAI weighs the competing arguments, the outcome of the consultation will help determine not only how V2X services are deployed, but also who captures value from the emerging connected mobility ecosystem. With operators pushing for a commercial spectrum model and automotive and technology stakeholders prioritising rapid, safety-driven deployment, regulators face a delicate balancing act between fostering innovation, ensuring efficient spectrum use, and addressing an urgent road safety challenge.
The decisions taken in the coming months will likely shape India’s intelligent transport landscape for years to come.
How is AI supercharging the UK’s digital economy? Join the discussions at Connected Britain 2026
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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.
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.
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]
