What’s up with… LG Uplus, AI datacentres, Bharti Airtel

• LG Uplus acquires security services specialist
• South Korea signals its AI infrastructure intentions
• Bharti Airtel ramps Q1 sales by 18%

In today’s industry news roundup: South Korea’s LG Uplus has made its first acquisition in years to bolster its security services portfolio and is investing further in its AI datacentre facilities; South Korea’s three major mobile operators are all involved in the country’s new AIDC Alliance; Bharti Airtel has reported growth across the board for the first quarter of its new fiscal year; and much more!

South Korean mobile operator LG Uplus has acquired domestic managed detection and response (MDR) specialist Pago Networks for an undisclosed sum, the company announced in this press release (in Korean). The Korea Herald reported that the acquisition, its first M&A move since its 2019 purchase of HelloVision, is part of a broader push to grow its security services line of business. MDR services monitor a company’s security environment 24/7 and include a wide range of features, such as threat detection, analysis, and response. Pago’s MDR solution, DeepACT, acts as a virtual dedicated Security Operations Centre team for customers across the energy, chemicals, manufacturing, finance, healthcare and government sectors in seven Asian countries. LG Uplus already offers a number of security services, including its U+ Premium Security Control, which remotely monitors security threats for enterprise customers, and its post-quantum cryptography-based authentication service, AlphaKey.

The Korean operator is also investing in its AI datacentre (AIDC) portfolio, with LG Uplus unveiling plans to invest $945m into a 200 megawatt (MW) facility near Seoul between now and the end of November 2028. The board of LG Corp., the parent company of LG Uplus, approved the funding for the next phase of the Paju AI datacentre last week, according to a filing with South Korea’s financial authorities, which noted that the investment is needed for the “construction of a new AIDC facility to accommodate growing customer demand”. This investment follows the previous $431.5m investment made in the first phase of the Paju campus in May 2025, according to Asia real estate news site Mingtiandi. Plans to build the 73,710 sqm Paju campus have been in the works since May 2024, when the company announced its intention to purchase real estate, including land and buildings in Paju, owned by LG Display. It will eventually be able to hold more than 100,00 servers, and will add to the company’s existing footprint, which currently sits at 10 facilities operating across South Korea. You can read more about LG Uplus’s datacentre strategy here.

News of the LG Uplus investment came as the operator, along with its domestic telco rivals KT Corp. and SK Telecom, were unveiled as founding partners in South Korea’s new AIDC Alliance (AI Datacentre Alliance), a public-private alliance that collectively aims to deliver AI infrastructure capacity of 18.4 gigawatts (GWs) by 2035. The alliance has been formed as part of South Korea’s plan to be one of the world’s major AI infrastructure hubs and influencers alongside the likes of China and the US. In addition to the telco trio, the 12 founding steering board committee members are semiconductor startup FuriosaAI, GS Group, Kakao, KTNF (Korea Technology and Future), LG Electronics, LS Electric, Naver Cloud, NHN Cloud, and Samsung SDS (the IT services arm of Samsung). You can find out more about the alliance in this TechTimes article. 

Bharti Airtel reported a major bump in both revenues and earnings during its fiscal first quarter, with growth across India and Africa boosting group revenues by 18% year on year to 585.4bn rupees ($6.16bn). For the three months to the end of June, Airtel’s domestic business in India reported revenues of 412.1bn rupees (around $4.34bn), up by 9.7% year on year, while EBITDA for its Indian operations increased by almost 10.9% to 247.8bn rupees ($2.6bn). The operator credited its domestic market growth to more mobile customers moving onto higher cost tariffs, which it calls “premiumisation”, as well as strong momentum in its Homes and Airtel Business operations. Mobile revenues increased by 9.2% to 299.3bn rupees ($3.15bn) while mobile monthly ARPU (average revenue per user) increased from 250 rupees a year earlier to 264 rupees ($2.77). During the quarter Airtel added 14.9 million customers to take its total base to 681 million across 15 countries, of which almost 492 million are in India. This was driven by what Airtel claims is its highest ever quarterly postpaid customer growth, with more than 1 million additions. The Indian giant also pointed to some of its technical developments in the quarter, including the launch of its “postpaid fast lane” service, built on 5G slicing technology. “We delivered yet another quarter of strong performance, supported by the resilience of our diversified portfolio and sharp execution across businesses,” noted executive vice chairman and CEO Gopal Vittal.

Thailand’s True Corp. has issued a statement confirming that China Mobile International (CMI) is looking to sell part of its stake in the telco, but has denied the Chinese operator is planning to exit entirely. The statement comes in response to a Bloomberg article (subscription required) that claimed CMI had tasked advisors to test the waters for a sale of its 7.81% stake in True, which is valued at around $1.1bn. Bloomberg cited “people familiar with the matter”, who claimed CMI could look to exit the operator entirely. In a statement to the Thai Stock Exchange, True Corp CFO Nakul Sehgal denied the reports, adding that China Mobile is only assessing the possible sale of a small part of its holding, with plans to continue as a long-term shareholder in the company. "China Mobile has confirmed that it intends to remain a long-term shareholder, regards the company as an important strategic partner and continues to have confidence in the company’s long-term development and business outlook," the filing said.

That news emerged as True Corp. announced it had signed up to a government-led quantum initiative that aims to develop quantum-ready talent, accelerate research, enable industrial applications, and position Thailand to seize opportunities in the future quantum economy. Quantum Club Thailand sees the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI) working with True, Charoen Pokphand Group, Arise, QTRic, and US-based quantum software platform provider qBraid to connect government, universities, researchers, industry and startups to work on quantum projects. At launch, it has announced four strategic missions: Talent development; research acceleration; industry enablement; and innovation creation. These will be brought to fruition through three programs: Quantum Academy Thailand; Quantum Industry Lab; and Quantum Innovation Challenge. The Quantum Club was launched at an event in Bangkok featuring MHESI minister and Deputy Prime Minister Yodchanan Wongsawat, True Founder and Chairman Suphachai Chearavanont, Charoen Pokphand Group Chief of Sustainability and Strategic Development Teerapon Tanomsakyut, President of QTRic Worawat Meevasana, and qBraid COO Ricky Young.

Japan’s Tohoku Intelligent Telecommunications company (TOHKnet) has carried out the country’s first live network trial using 50G passive optical network (PON), XGS-PON and EPON on a single fibre, in partnership with Adtran. The trial was conducted in Sendai and used Adtran’s SDX 6400 Series OLT to show how three generations of PON technology can operate together in a live environment. The aim, according to the vendor, is to highlight how operators can introduce 50G PON capacity without interrupting existing services in order to maximise the value from existing fibre deployments. Operators are looking at higher capacity PON technology as a way of boosting bandwidth on fibre assets that are already in use, whether that be for residential, business or backhaul purposes, but one challenge is how to introduce new solutions without requiring major changes to the optical distribution network. TOHKnet noted it is “about building a more adaptable network for our customers while continuing to support the digital growth of the Tohoku region”. You can read all about the trial in Adtran’s press release.

Veon has long been known as a progressive digital service provider and its latest quarterly earnings have only cemented that reputation. In the three months to the end of June, the international operator noted that its digital revenues increased by 53.6% year on year to $342m, almost 27% of total group revenues (up from 20.5% a year earlier), and that those digital services, now used by 227.7 million customers across the portfolio, commanded an EBITDA margin of 36.1%. Total group revenues increased by 17% to $1.27bn, while group EBITDA increased by 6.2% to $552m. Veon Group CEO Kaan Terzioglu noted that the operator is “introducing three digital pillars – Financial Services, Digital Life and Digital Enterprise – as a lens through which to view the digital business. As customers adopt more of our digital services, they generate more revenue, stay with us longer and drive stronger cash generation for the group.” The success of its digital service growth strategy has also helped Veon to raise its full year outlook, with group annual revenues now expected to grow at between 15% and 18%, compared with the previous forecast of 11% to 14%, while EBITDA is set to grow by 9% to 12% (previously 7% to 10%). 

– The staff, TelecomTV