The week in AI-native telco (10-16 Oct 2026)

• Infrastructure investments and service portfolio enhancements dominated the week’s AI-native telco news
• Sovereign AI, cloud services and cybersecurity were also prominent themes

Telcos and their technology partners pressed ahead this week with efforts to develop their own sovereign AI infrastructure, identify opportunities for autonomous network deployments, and bring agentic AI to bear across networks, enterprise services and SME markets. 

In addition, standards bodies moved to shape the emerging AI infrastructure landscape, while cybersecurity and datacentre interconnect capacity also featured prominently in announcements from operators and vendors across Europe, Asia and beyond. 

So here are the main developments from the seven days that ended on Friday 16 October…

Scaleway, the cloud and AI unit of European telco Iliad Group, is investing in new infrastructure deployments in Scandinavia, expanding its compute capacity and adding to its technology partnerships as it positions itself to be a key provider of digital sovereign cloud and AI services in Europe. The company has a very clear aspiration: To deliver what it calls “technological autonomy” to European enterprises so they have “the ability to choose, develop and operate technologies from Europe”. The ambition isn’t new. Backed by the vision of telecom and tech entrepreneur Xavier Niel, Iliad – arguably the most successful alternative telco in Europe – has been investing in its cloud and AI infrastructure and platforms for years. It committed investments totalling €3bn into AI-dedicated infrastructure and platforms via its datacentre division OpCore, a joint venture with InfraVia, and Scaleway, which has been busy over the past year. In 2025, Scaleway formed the AION European AI consortium to accelerate sovereign service and infrastructure developments, and launch a French bid to be part of the European Union’s AI Gigafactories initiative. And it has been brokering other deals, such as this one with Airbus and this one with Tele2, as well as multiple partnerships that have already put it at the heart of Europe’s digital sovereign services sector. Now Scaleway has shifted up a gear, with news that it is to spread its wings and bulk up as it aims to “give European businesses the infrastructure, performance and technological freedom they need to develop, deploy and run AI applications from Europe.” Read the full story.

Altice Portugal, the Iberian country’s national operator that operates using the brand name Meo, has teamed up with Nokia for a “joint innovation programme dedicated to applying artificial intelligence and automation in real-world network environments,” the telco announced. The AI-native autonomous networks initiative “aims to explore new ways to integrate AI into the design, operation, monitoring and optimisation of networks, making them progressively smarter, more adaptable and more autonomous,” the telco noted, adding that “the goal is to develop and test concrete use cases that enable networks to detect changes, anticipate needs and respond more quickly and efficiently. It noted that the initiative “reflects Meo’s commitment to paving the way for the next generation of communications networks and turning AI innovation into tangible results. AI is becoming a fundamental layer of future networks, enabling them to detect, predict and respond with greater speed, accuracy and autonomy.” Meo’s CTO, José Pedro Nascimento, stated: “Artificial intelligence is transforming the way communications networks are designed, operated and experienced. At Meo, we are developing the capabilities needed to turn this evolution into concrete applications, combining the expertise of our teams with the experience of leading technology partners. This programme allows us to explore new ways to build smarter, more resilient and more efficient infrastructure, creating greater value for our customers and also helping to strengthen Portugal’s position in the digital economy.” Meo is Portugal’s mobile market leader, with about 7 million customers, and fibre access services, and some 4.5 million connections.

Singtel’s International Digital Services (IDS) unit, which focuses on building new telco-related digital services in the South-east Asia region, and Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) have launched the Singtel Stack-EZ AI Data Enablement Programme, a two-year initiative to help small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) “organise, structure and make better use of their business data, and become data ready to fully utilise AI tools”. Under the programme, the first 10,000 SMEs will receive complimentary access for six months to SPACE, Singtel’s new AI-powered document management solution that, according to the telco, “turns information from everyday business documents into structured, searchable and reusable data”. Derrick Heng, chief commercial officer at IDS, stated: “Many SMEs recognise the potential of AI but may not know where to start. Having a strong data foundation is an important first step. With Stack-EZ and SPACE, we want to make digital and AI capabilities more accessible to SMEs so they can use technology to strengthen their businesses and pursue new opportunities for growth.”

Vodafone Spain is offering agentic AI solutions, which were until now only pitched to large enterprises in the country, to more than 100,000 SMEs. The Zegona Communications-owned operator has adapted its AI agents to suit the needs of small- and medium-sized businesses using “a scalable and flexible model that allows businesses to add users as needed and pay only for actual technology usage, without requiring large upfront investments,” it noted in this recent announcement (in Spanish). Carlos Ortiz, director of SMEs at Vodafone Spain’s B2B unit, noted: “In SMEs, we see the greatest opportunity for artificial intelligence to help people. The goal is to free employees from low-value tasks so they can dedicate their time to what truly improves customer relationships and drives business growth.”

More than 100 delegates from across the industry attended the inaugural meeting of the ETSI Technical Committee on Federated Network, Edge, Cloud and AI Technologies (TC NET), which was launched in June and aims to develop “globally applicable standards for a digital infrastructure that integrates computing and AI resources with connectivity technologies, resulting in a highly programmable, intelligent and federated cloud-network-edge-device continuum”. Dr. Ricard Vilalta, chair of ETSI TC NET and research director at the Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC) where he leads the zero-touch management and secure network service orchestration research within the packet optical networks and services (PONS) unit, stated: “TC NET will define how computing, connectivity and AI resources are federated across cloud, network, edge and devices, so that intelligent services can run wherever they are needed.” During the three-day meeting, four working groups were created to focus specifically on: Continuum infrastructure and control; continuum exposure and services; agentic, intelligent and autonomous networks; and ecosystem harmonisation and validation.

In an effort to position itself as the go-to provider of cybersecurity services for UK enterprises and help protect businesses against “increasingly complex AI-powered threats”, BT Group has “deepened” its relationship with Microsoft to launch the not-very-catchily-named Security Operations Centre-as-a-Service (SOCaaS) for Microsoft Sentinel, “a UK-managed service that combines Sentinel with BT’s advanced security operations expertise, threat intelligence and experience”. BT notes that “AI is rapidly increasing the speed, scale and sophistication of cyberattacks. The Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2026 outlines how AI is changing the physics of cybersecurity and compressing attack timelines, with the average time from discovery to weaponisation of security vulnerabilities having now fallen to well below 24 hours.” BT, in partnership with Microsoft, is well placed to help tackle these threats, as it already has a long history of using AI to underpin its managed security services and is already playing a major role in tackling cyber threats around the clock: The telco says it is currently “blocking around 4 million attempted cyberattacks every day”. Jon James, CEO at BT Business, noted: “AI is transforming the cyber threat landscape at unprecedented speed, and our customers need protection that stays one step ahead. By extending our partnership with Microsoft, we’re combining cutting-edge security technology with BT’s cyber expertise and threat intelligence to deliver stronger, more proactive protection. It’s the latest example of how we’re helping organisations build resilience and defend against the next generation of AI-powered threats.”

BT Group’s overseas operation, BT International, which is set to be folded into a $4bn joint venture with US telco Verizon, has expanded its Global Fabric network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform “with a choice of security service edge (SSE) solutions to support multinational customers’ rapid deployment and scaling of AI agents, cloud applications and autonomous digital workflows,” the operator has announced. As organisations adopt AI at scale, traffic patterns across the network are dramatically changing, according to BT International, as “a growing number of users, AI agents, applications and devices are demanding more bandwidth, lower latency and access to multiple clouds from more locations”. As a result, “many CIOs now find that traditional network and security architectures lack the performance, scale, visibility and control needed to support these new demands. By providing optimised connectivity between Global Fabric and SSE solutions from leading vendors Cisco, Fortinet, Netskope and Zscaler, BT International enables customers to select more predictable, high-performance routes for their traffic, improving application responsiveness and delivering the best user experience,” it added.

South Korean telco KT Corp. has launched a new datacentre interconnect (DCI) service called the ‘AI dedicated line’ that offers speeds of up to 800 Gbit/s to “meet the increasing demand for large-capacity data transmission driven by the expansion of AI datacentres (AIDCs)”, the operator announced (in Korean). The service expands the bandwidth of dedicated lines from the existing maximum of 100 Gbit/s to up to 400 Gbit/s and 800 Gbit/s through the deployment of an “optical-centric network structure based on APN (all photonic network),” an optical networking concept being developed by the IOWN Global Forum. Jeon Myung-jun, head of the Enterprise Service Division at KT’s Enterprise Group, stated: “As AI datacentres and GPU infrastructure expand, the importance of ultra-high-speed and ultra-low-latency networks will grow even more. Through the AI ​​dedicated line, KT will support customers in rapidly and flexibly building and expanding large-scale AX infrastructure.”

It was a busy week for Nvidia, which will no doubt be making a lot of Europe-related noise in the coming days as it hosts its GTC Berlin 2026 event (20-22 October). The AI tech giant has brokered expanded partnerships with two auto giants, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo, to “advance the next generation of automated driving systems” and “unlock new levels of safety in automated driving technology”, respectively: You can find out more in this announcement with Mercedes-Benz and this press release with Volvo. In the UK, Nvidia is donating $50m worth of high-performance compute access per year, for the next five years, to “strengthen the United Kingdom’s agentic safety and security research capability”. Nvidia’s founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, stated in this announcement: “AI capability and safety must advance together. The UK brings world-class scientific rigour to this essential engineering challenge. With this $250m commitment, Nvidia will put accelerated computing in the hands of UK researchers to develop, test and strengthen safeguards for increasingly powerful AI. This is how the UK turns research leadership into real-world solutions – and scientific progress into a future that benefits everyone.” And in the world of high-speed, high-capacity networking, Nvidia and Cisco announced plans to develop an ultra-dense small-form factor pluggable (USFP), a “new high-density 400Gbit/s-per-lane optical module designed to equip the hardware ecosystem for the next generation of AI factories using pluggable transceivers”. The USFP tech is “designed to enable AI factory builders to scale from 200 Gbit/s per lane to 400Gbit/s-per-lane Ethernet AI fabrics, while extending a deployment model proven at scale across multiple generations of datacentre networks. With USFP, customers can embrace next-generation optical technology and meet the performance demand of AI workloads without overhauling their datacentre infrastructure.”

Industry veteran and regular contributor to TelecomTV debates Andrew Coward has joined security tech specialist F5 to run strategic alliances (which includes relationships with telecom sector firms). Coward, whose networking career has included stints at Juniper Networks, Brocade, Lumina Networks and, most recently, IBM (where he was general manager of software networking), unveiled his new role in this LinkedIn post. Coward used the post to explain why he believes F5 is well placed to help companies scale and secure their digital infrastructure to deal with agentic AI traffic. The news that Coward has joined the company comes only days after Indonesian AI-native telco Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) announced it is working with F5 to provide enterprises with “a trusted and governed environment that simplifies how businesses access and deploy AI, without requiring them to build and manage complex infrastructure themselves.”

Apple has unveiled Apple HomeView, a $299 device for homes that has a 7-inch Liquid Retina display, which can recognise users by their faces and acts as a hub for entertainment, messaging and connectivity, and smart home management. HomeView features Siri AI, an “entirely new version of Siri that’s profoundly more capable and conversational, with broad world knowledge that powers richer music discovery and onscreen awareness. When paired with an Apple Intelligence-enabled device, it can also draw on a user’s personal context, such as their calendar, messages, and relevant information across their apps, to provide more helpful, personalised responses,” noted Apple in this announcement. While customers in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, the UK and the US can pre-order it from today (with product availability beginning 13 November), and with other markets to follow, the Apple HomeView “is not available for sale in the European Union, as Siri AI is currently unavailable in iOS in the EU. Apple is working constructively with the EU in an attempt to find a path forward,” noted the device giant. Device reviewers, as you’d expect, have already given their verdicts, and it’s fair to say they are variable, from this one that suggests Amazon should be concerned about this new rival, to this one that believes the Apple HomeView has missed the mark and won’t appeal to consumers.

Globe Telecom’s AI chief Anton Reynaldo M. Bonifacio is set to leave the company in January after 12 years at the Filipino telecom operator. Announcing his departure in a LinkedIn post, Bonifacio, who recently took responsibility not just for AI but also data, cybersecurity, privacy and digital policy, said he plans to step away from corporate life to “begin early retirement at age 44”. As long ago as May 2024, Globe made Bonifacio its first chief AI officer, and then appointed him as chief intelligence and trust officer (CITO) with responsibility for AI, data, cybersecurity and digital policy back in July 2026. Bonifacio wrote: “After 12 years at Globe Telecom and nearly a quarter-century in technology, I have decided to step down as executive vice president and chief intelligence and trust officer (CITO) to begin early retirement at age 44… Having spent over a decade building teams from scratch, moving first, exploring uncharted territories and daring to be different, I have nothing but gratitude for everyone that made our frontier efforts a success.” [Editor’s note: We have heard of early retirement but… 44? It’s enough to make us weep…] He will depart in January, with Garrett Silao set to take on his responsibilities from then, reporting directly to Globe president and CEO Carl Raymond R. Cruz. “Mr. Bonifacio represented Globe in important conversations with technology and telecommunications leaders, both here and in the global space… Globe has been established not only as an adopter of emerging technology but also a credible voice in shaping how technology can be deployed responsibly and at scale,” noted Globe. His departure comes on the back of notable success. Just last month, Globe was touting the success of its AI investments, revealing it had seen a 2.8x return on them to date.

- The staff, TelecomTV