Microsoft is collaborating with UAE’s AI firm G42 in a landmark move aimed at accelerating AI innovation across such sectors as finance, healthcare, and education, with a considerable investment. This move, merged with strategic geopolitical consideration, has sent ripples across the global telecommunications industry, indicating a shift in its dynamics.
Global smartphone shipments saw a notable 7.8% year-over-year increase in the first quarter of 2024, according to data from IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. The total shipments for the quarter reached 89.4 million units, marking the third consecutive quarter of growth and indicating a solid recovery in the smartphone market.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has raised alarms regarding the possibility of a collusion among a handful of American tech giants, aiming to manipulate the AI market in their favor. The focus of their worry centers on the control exerted by these companies over the development and commercialization of foundation models (FMs), with Open AI’s GPT being a prominent example.
President Yoon Suk Yeol recently detailed South Korea’s aggressive moves to establish its supremacy in the global semiconductor sector, including a staggering $6.94 billion commitment to AI by 2027. Amid fierce competition, South Korea’s largest telecom firm, SK Telecom, is paralleling governmental efforts with its own investment in AI firms.
Huawei is nearing completion of a large R&D complex in Shanghai focused on semiconductor technology. Fujitsu, NEC, NTT, and DoCoMo have unveiled a groundbreaking ‘top-level sub-terahertz 6G device’ achieving 100 Gbps speeds over 100-meter distances in the 100 GHz and 300 GHz bands. MASV’s Solutions Partner Program simplifies large file transfers using their cloud-based platform. LEAP is expanding global customer outreach with Vonage’s Communications APIs and SIP Trunking for scalable cloud connectivity.
In a stark warning delivered at a regional investment banking conference in Tallinn, Estonia, Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm highlighted Europe’s precarious position in the global telecom arena. Emphasizing the urgent need for regulatory reform and innovation prioritization, Ekholm cautioned that Europe’s telecom industry is trailing far behind its counterparts in the US, China, and India.
Juniper Research, in partnership with VOX Solutions, delves into the increasingly critical issue of Artificially Inflated Traffic (AIT) and SMS Trashing impacting the global business messaging sector. The report divulges disconcerting figures, with fraudulent activities such as AIT significantly bolstering operational costs and potentially costing enterprises an alarming $60 million annually.
The global enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI) is set to significantly boost spending in edge computing infrastructure and services, with projections from IDC indicating a jump to $232 billion this year, marking a 15.4% increase from the previous year. This surge reflects the growing demand for technologies that facilitate faster and more efficient data processing closer to the source of data generation.
Injecting fresh vigor into the national establishment for data science and AI, UK’s Chancellor commits £100 million in funding to The Alan Turing Institute. This allocation, targeting environment, health, defence, and national security, underlines UK’s ambitious stride towards global AI leadership.
Nokia unveiled specialized, private AI models for the telecom sector to improve network operations and customer service. A coalition of 10 governments agreed on principles for secure 6G networks. IBM and the GSMA have launched a global AI training initiative to bridge the AI knowledge gap among telecom operators. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X80 modem chip introduces 5G-Advanced support with up to 10 Gbps speeds and six-carrier aggregation.
