• SK Telecom strengthens its sovereign AI pitch 
• HPE expands its AI factory offer with Nvidia
• Telefónica ranks as second most sustainable company in the world

In today’s industry news roundup: SK Telecom is testing neural processing unit (NPU) tech from South Korean chip vendor Rebellions to support its domestic AI services; HPE has expanded its AI factory relationship with Nvidia; Telefónica is the only telco in the top-10 ranking of the most sustainable companies in the world; and much more!

SK Telecom (SKT) is conducting tests with South Korean AI semiconductor startup Rebellions to apply the vendor’s neural processing unit (NPU) to its main AI services in what is the latest example of a ‘sovereign AI’ development. NPUs are most suited to AI inference and machine learning workloads as they offer greater efficiency and lower power consumption than the GPUs (graphics processing units) used for large language model (LLM) training. SKT is testing servers equipped with Rebellions’ Atom system-on-chip (SoC) for a range of its AI services, including spam filtering and Adot Phone Call Summary, which is based on SKT’s Korean LLM, AdotX. If the tests are successful, SKT plans to deploy Atom-Max AI accelerator card-based servers to support a range of commercial AI services “within the year”, the operator noted in this announcement (in Korean). SKT noted that if its commercial Adot Phone Call Summary service is supported by the Atom processors, it will be “a sovereign AI, where the domestic LLM is serviced through a domestic NPU”. Rebellions is well known to SKT: In August 2024, Sapeon, a South Korean AI chip developer spun out of SKT in 2016, merged with Rebellions to form a larger South Korean AI processor specialist that had greater scale and a better chance of success in the rapidly evolving AI tech sector, and the merged company adopted the Rebellions brand. At the time of the merger, SKT stated that it planned to “actively support the merged company’s entry into the global AI semiconductor market and the enhancement of Korea’s AI semiconductor competitiveness as a strategic investor.” Then earlier this year, SKT, Rebellions and Docomo Innovations, part of Japanese mobile operator NTT Docomo, struck an agreement to jointly develop and validate “cutting-edge AI acceleration technologies,” with a focus on the evaluation of Atom-based NPU servers within SKT’s “NPU farm”. Commenting on the testing of the Atom processors, Lee Sang-min, head of SKT’s Growth Business Promotion Office, stated: “At a time when competition in AI technology between countries is intensifying, strengthening the independence of the domestic AI ecosystem is a critical factor that can determine the competitiveness of a country, not an individual company. SKT will continue to work to strengthen the capabilities of the domestic AI ecosystem, including AI datacentres, LLMs and AI semiconductors.” Park Seong-hyeon, CEO of Rebellion, added: “The fact that domestically produced AI semiconductors can be applied to SKT’s domestic LLM-based services goes beyond technological perfection and is an important milestone in realising self-reliance in the domestic AI ecosystem. Rebellions will continue to contribute to Korea’s leap forward as one of the world’s top-three AI powerhouses through stable and energy-efficient AI infrastructure.”

HPE has kicked off its Discover event in Las Vegas with a slew of announcements, the most notable (for us, anyway) being the expanded relationship between the vendor and AI tech giant Nvidia that relates to one of the most interesting infrastructure developments of modern times – AI factories. HPE is expanding its Nvidia AI Computing by HPE portfolio of AI factory solutions with Nvidia Blackwell GPUs, “including new composable solutions optimised for service providers, model builders and sovereign entities, as well as the next generation of HPE Private Cloud AI, the turnkey AI factory for enterprises,” noted the vendor in this announcement. The integrated solution removes the “complexity of customers having to compile a full AI tech stack on their own when building a modern AI-ready datacentre,” added the vendor. HPE president and CEO Antonio Neri noted: “Generative, agentic and physical AI have the potential to transform global productivity and create lasting societal change, but AI is only as good as the infrastructure and data behind it. Organisations need the data, intelligence and vision to capture the AI opportunity and this makes getting the right IT foundation essential. HPE and Nvidia are delivering the most comprehensive approach, joining industry-leading AI infrastructure and services to enable organisations to realise their ambitions and deliver sustainable business value,” he added. For further details and insight, see this HPE blog. AI factories are being built and developed, mostly based on Nvidia technology, all over the world by enterprises and by telcos seeking to offer services to the enterprise sector. You’ll find the latest telco AI factory news in our dedicated Telcos & AI channel. 

Telefónica is the second most sustainable company in the world, according to the second edition of the ‘World’s Most Sustainable Companies’ ranking developed by Time and Statista. The Spanish giant is the only telco in the top 10. Compared with the previous ranking, Telefónica climbed seven positions by obtaining a score of 87.68, almost seven points higher than in the previous edition, the telco noted in this announcement. The ranking is based on an analysis of more than 5,000 companies from over 30 countries, and involves a four-step methodology that results in a total sustainability score (maximum 100 points). “This recognition is testament to the deep integration of sustainability into our business model and our commitment to transparency,” stated Elena Valderrábano, Telefónica’s global chief sustainability (ESG) officer. “Moreover, it inspires us to continue integrating ESG into every decision and to lead the way in responsible digitalisation,” she added. Deutsche Telekom ranked 16th, while pan-European shared infrastructure firm Cellnex came in at 18th. Sweden’s Tele2 ranked 23rd, reflecting “the hard work and dedication of everyone at Tele2 to integrate sustainability across all aspects of our operations,” noted its CEO Jean Marc Harion in this announcement. Vodafone Group ranked at 27, KPN at 36, SoftBank Group at 45, Elisa at 55, Telus at 83, Taiwan Mobile at 85 and BT Group at 96. French tech and energy management firm Schneider Electric topped the ranking, while NEC came 7th, Nokia ranked at 37, Fujitsu at 42, Tech Mahindra at 57, Ericsson at 58, Nvidia at 59, HPE at 68, and Qualcomm at 90.  

Vodafone Group has teamed up with tech and engineering solutions specialist Cyient to develop an AI-powered Global Network Configuration Management solution supported by data-driven, intelligent configuration analytics. “This innovation represents a major milestone in transforming network engineering and operations, delivering unprecedented visibility and efficiency across Vodafone’s teams and markets,” the partners noted in this announcement. The tool “leverages AI to unify configuration data, as well as logical and physical inventory, enhancing network management efficiency across multiple Vodafone local markets,” they added. “The platform provides Vodafone teams with unified network visibility across markets, enabling them to benchmark configurations, detect anomalies, and track deployments. It supports mobility strategy analysis and spectrum utilisation, driving efficiency, alignment, and faster data-driven decisions,” according to the partners. 

For those who have been around the telecom sector for a few decades, the Metro Ethernet Forum, or MEF as it became known, was at the forefront of developing industry-agreed specifications, as well as certification programmes, for carrier Ethernet services, which are vital to the operations of modern communications networks. Once that initial mission was successfully completed, the forum turned its attention to other developments, including network orchestration and automation and the development of network-as-a-service (NaaS) offerings, but it never changed its name… until now! And what must surely be a sign of how difficult it is to come up with a name for which a URL is still available, the forum has changed its name to the Mplify Alliance, while its new website URL is www.mplify.net/. “The name Mplify encapsulates the organisation’s role in amplifying collaboration, scaling adoption and driving shared innovation,” the alliance stated in this announcement. While many things have changed for the industry body in recent years, there’s at least one constant – the group’s leader is still Mr Carrier Ethernet himself, Nan Chen. “Mplify is built on everything that made MEF successful and designed for what the future demands,”  stated Chen, whose business card now says ‘CEO of Mplify’.  “In cybersecurity especially, the industry has long been opaque, with every provider claiming to be secure but offering no shared definition or proof. Through standardisation and certification, we’re introducing trust and transparency into a space that badly needs both. Mplify gives us the platform and momentum to bring the ecosystem together, educate the market and define what secure, automated, AI-powered services should look like.” We wish Mplify the very best with its new identity!

Network intelligence and security vendor Allot is raising $40m from the sale of 5 million shares at $8.00 each so it can pay off $31.41m of a $40m of a convertible note (debt) to its largest shareholder, Lynrock Lake Master Fund, and use the remaining balance of the money raised for general corporate purposes. In connection with the process, Lynrock is converting the outstanding $8.59m of debt into Allot shares: That leaves Allot as a debt-free company. The news sent Allot’s share price crashing by 16% to $8.07 as the issue of the new shares diluted the stock held by existing shareholders by about 20%. In the first quarter of this year, Allot reported revenues of $23.2m, up 6% year on year, and an operating loss of $700,000 compared with a loss of $2.7m a year earlier. 

– The staff, TelecomTV