• Cohere brokers transatlantic sovereign AI deal
• Veon cements its DSP, sovereign credentials
• Telia is on a steady growth path

In today’s industry news roundup: Canada’s Cohere is merging with German AI counterpart Aleph Alpha to create a $20bn giant with sovereign services ambitions; Veon is making significant progress with its digital and sovereign services strategy; Telia starts 2026 with steady sales and margins progress; and much more!

Canadian AI developer Cohere is to merge with German counterpart Aleph Alpha to form a “combined entity”, reportedly worth about $20bn, that will “function as a transatlantic AI powerhouse, anchored in Germany and Canada, empowering organisations to choose, deploy and govern AI according to local laws, cultural contexts, and institutional requirements”. Cohere and Aleph Alpha stated in this announcement that they “aim to deliver a secure alternative for customised AI in highly regulated sectors – including the public sector, finance, defence, energy, manufacturing, telecommunications, and healthcare.” As part of the agreement, German retail giant Schwarz Group, a significant shareholder in Aleph Alpha, will invest €500m in Cohere’s next financing round: Schwarz will also partner with the combined company to deploy a “sovereign offering” on Stackit, its cloud platform that is also being used for the development of innovative telecom applications, as we reported earlier this month.  Ilhan Scheer, co-CEO of Aleph Alpha, stated: “Aleph Alpha is in a unique position in Europe: We develop specialised large language models for Europe without compromising on sovereignty, transparency and regulatory compliance. By living this responsibility, we serve as a trusted and strategic partner to public sector and enterprise customers in Europe. Together with Cohere, we are building a real counterweight for organisations that refuse to outsource control over their AI to a single provider or jurisdiction, giving European institutions and enterprises access to powerful, yet controllable AI they can truly own.”

International operator Veon, which has operations in Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, used its annual report to serve as a reminder of its ongoing transformation into a digital service provider and its role as a developer of sovereign capabilities. CEO Kaan Terzioğlu noted: “In 2025, Veon crossed a threshold we [had] been building toward for years: For the first time we had more users of our digital services than for connectivity alone,” as it ended the year with more than 205 million active users of its digital services and 150 million connectivity customers. “That milestone demonstrates that we are not augmenting a telco; we are building a digital operator whose growth is measured in the value that we add to people’s lives… From the successful listing of Kyivstar on Nasdaq to expanding into new digital service verticals and bringing satellite connectivity to our markets, these actions reinforced our evolution into a more agile, high-growth consumer and enterprise services company,” added the CEO. Veon also noted that: Its digital operators “deployed AI-enabled solutions across consumer services, enterprise platforms and operations”; its operation in Ukraine, Kyivstar,  partnered with the Ministry of Digital Transformation to develop a Ukrainian large language model (LLM); and that it “initiated partnerships to accelerate the development of sovereign AI across its markets”.

Telia, which has operations in six markets in the Nordic and Baltic regions, has reported a 2.1% year-on-year increase in like-for-like service revenues to 17.14bn Swedish krona (SEK) ($1.85bn) and a 4% increase in adjusted EBITDA to SEK7.94bn ($858m) for the first quarter of 2026. “We have started this year as we finished the last – by executing according to plan,” stated CEO Patrik Hofbauer in this earnings release. “We grew service revenue and further improved profitability in the first quarter through discipline in cost and capital allocation. Demand for Telia’s services is strong across our markets, with transformational technologies, such as AI, dependent on secure, reliable and high-quality connectivity. Our customers are increasingly satisfied with us, and we are committed to continuing to meet their evolving expectations, while becoming an even simpler, faster and more efficient company.”

Low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite operator AST SpaceMobile, which suffered a setback earlier this month, has been given the green light by US regulator the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deliver direct-to-device (D2D) services from space using low-band spectrum. “The authorisation enables AST SpaceMobile to deploy and operate an NGSO [non-geostationary orbit] constellation of up to 248 satellites to deliver supplemental coverage from space (SCS) directly to unmodified mobile devices across the United States, using premium low-band spectrum – 700 MHz and 800 MHz – which offers superior penetration and coverage characteristics, in coordination with its mobile network operator strategic partners Verizon, AT&T, and FirstNet,” the satellite company noted in this announcement. 

SK Telecom and energy company SK Innovation, both of which are part of South Korea’s SK Group, have signed separate memorandum of understandings (MoUs) with Vietnam’s Nghe An Province and the country’s National Innovation Center with plans to build an artificial intelligence ecosystem, including datacentres. At the recent Korea-Vietnam Business Forum, held in Hanoi this week, SK Group signed agreements that will see the telco work with Vietnam to build core AI infrastructure in the country, as part of a wider technological alliance agreed between the two countries. SK Group has agreed to build an AI datacentre and infrastructure that will deliver a stable power supply, laying the groundwork for the first overseas expansion of its “Korean-style AI full-stack” model that can be used to launch industry-specific AI services. SK Innovation already has an agreement to co-develop the Quynh Lap LNG gas power project in Nghe An Province alongside Vietnam’s state-owned oil and gas group PVN, while SK Telecom has made no secret of its ambition to take the AI infrastructure experience it has developed in its domestic market to international markets as part of its broader AI strategy. 

Intel’s share price shot up by 24.4% to $83.08 in early trading on the Nasdaq exchange on Friday morning following the publication of its first-quarter financial results, which were much stronger than expected. Fuelled by demand from the datacentre infrastructure sector for its CPUs (central processing units), the chip giant reported a 22% year-on-year increase in sales from its datacentre and AI product line to $5.1bn and that helped the company to report a 7% year-on-year increase in total group revenues to $13.6bn. “The next wave of AI will bring intelligence closer to the end user, moving from foundational models to inference to agentic,” stated CEO Lip-Bu Tan. “This shift is significantly increasing the need for Intel’s CPUs and wafer and advanced packaging offerings. With a solid foundation in place, we are addressing this opportunity by listening to our customers and driving their success with our technical expertise and differentiated IP. This deliberate reset to how we operate drove a sixth consecutive quarter of revenue above our expectations, as well as new and deepened relationships with strategic partners,” noted the CEO. David Zinsner, Intel CFO, added: “We delivered robust Q1 results, reflecting the growing and essential role of the CPU in the AI era and unprecedented demand for silicon, as well as our disciplined execution to expand available supply. We remain focused on maximising our factory network to improve available supply and meet our customers’ needs throughout the year.”

The UK government has given conditional approval to the acquisition of Manx Telecom by Dunlop Bidco, a joint venture between Jersey Telecom and infrastructure investor CVC DIF, the infrastructure arm of CVC Capital Partners. UK regulators were investigating the deal because Manx Telecom is classed as a “critical supplier” of communications services to the Isle of Man and UK government departments. The deal, which will see Jersey Telecom merge with Manx Telecom, can now proceed subject to guarantees that the combined company will continue to support UK national security interests, and establish and maintain a cybersecurity group within the company. The acquisition is the latest in a long line of mergers and sales for the Isle of Man-based telco, as set out here when TelecomTV originally reported on the bid.

US satellite firm SpinLaunch has turned to datacentre operator Equinix for the deployment of the terrestrial infrastructure needed to support its Meridian Space constellation, the companies have announced. The partnership will see SpinLaunch leverage the datacentre firm’s 280 interconnected locations to deploy the teleports that will support its low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites. SpinLaunch claims its teleports are significantly smaller than those of most of its rivals – just 90 square metres, to be precise – meaning they can be deployed on rooftops, datacentres or other existing sites, allowing them to connect into existing telecom infrastructure. The US-based company will co-locate with Equinix to eliminate the need to build new backhaul infrastructure. Meridian, which Spinlaunch announced last year, will consist of 280 LEO satellites offering mobile backhaul and industrial networks when it goes live, which the company expects to happen later this year or early 2027.  

The Nigerian Communications Commission has ordered telecom companies in the African country to begin offering compensation to subscribers experiencing poor service. According to media reports from Nigeria, NCC executive vice chairman Aminu Maida told technology journalists that affected users would be entitled to receive airtime compensation from this week, covering deficiencies recorded between November and January. It follows a directive first announced in March and outlined earlier this month. MTN – the biggest mobile operator in Nigeria with over 80 million subscribers – has confirmed it will act “in accordance with the applicable framework” in a press statement.

– The staff, TelecomTV