What’s up with… AI valuations, Intel, MásOrange

• OpenAI raises $40bn from SoftBank Group
• Intel’s new CEO sets out his stall
• MásOrange could be heading for a 2026 IPO

In today’s industry news roundup: OpenAI is now valued at $300bn following its latest cash injection, which has also given Coreweave a valuation boost; Intel’s new CEO Lip-Bu Tan has made an extensive pledge list; Spanish telco MásOrange could be heading for an IPO in 2026; and much more!

ChatGPT developer OpenAI has secured a new $40bn round of investment from SoftBank Group at a valuation of $300bn, the company announced late on Monday. The new funding “enables us to push the frontiers of AI research even further, scale our compute infrastructure, and deliver increasingly powerful tools for the 500 million people who use ChatGPT every week,” the company noted in this announcement. “We’re excited to be working in partnership with SoftBank Group – few companies understand how to scale transformative technology like they do. Their support will help us continue building AI systems that drive scientific discovery, enable personalised education, enhance human creativity, and pave the way toward AGI [artificial general intelligence] that benefits all of humanity.” How kind! SoftBank Group (SBG) noted in its announcement about the massive investment that it plans to “syndicate out $10bn of the up to $40bn investment to co-investors”, and shared its rationale for the investment. “With the centre of the ‘Information Revolution’ having evolved from personal computers, the internet, and broadband to smartphones, it has now entered a new phase led by artificial intelligence (AI). In this context, SBG has declared its mission to realise artificial super intelligence (ASI) for the advancement of humanity.” This is shaping up to be an encouraging week for humanity, it seems (though not if you follow the world news…). “Recognising OpenAI as the partner closest to achieving AGI, a key milestone on the path to ASI, and its mission of ensuring AGI benefits all of humanity, SBG has positioned OpenAI as its most important partner,” in which it had previously invested $2.2bn. SBG and OpenAI are, of course, partners in the $500bn US AI infrastructure Stargate Project announced in January, so the SBG team has a lot more cash to drum up to flesh out its big picture AI strategy. 

That OpenAI valuation suggests that there’s still a lot of faith in the potential of the AI sector, but might that bubble soon burst? Doubts were being cast when AI datacentre operator Coreweave debuted on the Nasdaq stock exchange on 28 March and its $40 shares quickly lost about 7% of their value, resulting in widespread negative coverage of the IPO. But the SoftBank investment in OpenAI, which is a major Coreweave customer, has given the AI infrastructure company’s stock a boost – it’s up by 8.6% to $40.27 in early trading on Tuesday. Can it stay above that $40 mark?  

US chipmaker Intel has been having a bad time of it recently and its share price fell by more than 60% last year as its financials worsened and CEO Pat Gelsinger was ousted in December. Now the battered company has a new head honcho, 65-year-old Lip-Bu Tan, the former CEO of Cadence Design Systems. In Monday’s initial address to customers, staff, shareholders, the market and the public, Tan told customers “You deserve better, and we need to improve.” He promised to make the company great again by reviving Intel’s original model and culture as an engineering-based behemoth focusing on chip technology development whilst cutting costs, trimming bureaucracy and selling non-core assets. He also emphasised that Intel’s much-vaunted, next-generation Panther Lake chips really will ship this year. According to The Wall Street Journal, Tan intends to rebuild Intel’s depleted ranks of talented engineers and make the company very much more customer-focused – something it has always claimed to be anyway. Tan added, “We lost quite a bit of talent. That’s my top priority, to recruit some of the best talent in the industry.” Tan certainly didn’t hesitate to make himself a hostage to fortune as he promised to “under promise and over deliver.” He frankly admitted that he is unhappy with Intel’s current position and direction: “I know that you [customers and shareholders] are not happy either. I have heard the feedback loud and clear.” Tan continued, “It's time to turn a new page,” but admitted that change “won’t happen overnight… We may not be perfect in the beginning, but eventually, you can count on it, I will make it perfect.” His basic plan is simple enough: To “outperform rivals, sell for less and use less energy.” However, in promising perfection, Tan may find he has made a rod for his own back. He may be a new-broom CEO now, but if his plans go awry, within a short time he could also be Intel’s last CEO. Only a few months ago things looked so bleak for the company that there was much speculation it would be acquired by a competitor. Given the wrong circumstances, that could still happen.

The private equity investors in Spanish telco MásOrange, which was formed as a result of the €18.6bn merger of Orange Spain and MásMóvil last year, are reportedly exploring the potential of an initial public offering (IPO) for the telco as soon as 2026. KKR, Cinven, and Providence Equity Partners, which jointly acquired MásMóvil in 2020, are looking at an exit and, under the terms of the merger, an IPO can be triggered by either Orange or the private equity partners after April 2026. MásOrange ended 2024 with 25.8 million mobile and 7.1 million fixed broadband customers, and generated full year revenues of almost €7.4bn, up 1.5%. 

Radio access network (RAN) systems vendor and Open RAN fan Airspan Networks has completed the acquisition of Corning’s small cell business, a deal that was initially announced only about five weeks ago. Financial details were not disclosed. In completing the deal, Airspan “assumes full ownership and operational control” of Corning’s wireless assets, including its 6000 and 6200 distributed antenna systems (DAS) and its SpiderCloud 4G and 5G small cell RAN portfolio. At the same time, Airspan has appointed wireless industry veteran Amit Jain, a former senior executive at Corning and SpiderCloud, as senior VP and general manager of In-Building Networks.

T-Mobile US and private equity firm EQT have completed the formation of their joint venture and the associated acquisition of fibre-to-the-premises operator Lumos, a deal that was first announced in April 2024. Lumos operates a 7,500-mile fibre network, providing high-speed connectivity to 475,000 homes across the Mid-Atlantic. The joint venture aims to expand the network to reach 3.5 million homes by the end of 2028. To fuel this growth, T-Mobile invested $950m into the joint venture, with an additional $500m planned for between 2027 and 2028 to support further expansion. “This deal marks a major milestone in T-Mobile’s broadband growth and builds on the Un-carrier’s success in delivering best-in-class connectivity,” noted the operator. “By bringing more value and choice to the millions of Americans who have previously been underserved, T-Mobile continues to deliver on its mission to change broadband for good. T-Mobile will take full ownership of the customer experience, using its proven brand, nationwide retail footprint, differentiated marketing and customer-first service model to attract new subscribers,” it added. Mike Katz, T-Mobile president of marketing, strategy and products, stated: “T-Mobile is already the fastest-growing broadband provider in America, and expanding into fibre helps us take the next big step in delivering what customers truly want – faster, more reliable internet that simply works. People deserve better when it comes to their home internet: Fewer disruptions, more value, and support that actually feels supportive. We’re excited to welcome Lumos customers to the T-Mobile family and bring them the Un-carrier experience – built around their needs, fuelled by innovation, and focused on making life easier.” 

The planned £1.16bn acquisition of British test and measurement technology vendor Spirent Communications by US-based Keysight Technologies, first announced about a year ago, has been given the green light by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). “With support and assistance from Spirent, Keysight remains committed to working quickly and constructively with the US Department of Justice and State Administration for Market Regulation of the People’s Republic of China to obtain clearance for the acquisition,” noted the companies in this London Stock Exchange announcement, with the deal set to be completed before the end of this July. Earlier this year, Keysight struck a deal to sell Spirent’s high-speed Ethernet and network security business lines to Viavi Solutions once the main acquisition is completed. 

There’s something slightly reminiscent of HAL 9000, the rogue computer in Stanley Kubrick’s epic science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey, in that an aging but by no means ancient European Space Agency (ESA) satellite, Gaia, has been proving difficult to shut down and retire. Gaia began its mission back in late 2013. It was constructed with multiple redundant backup computer systems so that it could be rebooted in the event of micro-meteorite strikes, exposure to excessive bursts of solar or other radiation, or loss of contact with earth, as it carried out its multiyear mission to make a 3D map of the Milky Way, the spiral galaxy where our solar system is sited in the small and incomplete Orion Spur. Gaia has spent the past 12 years measuring the movements and relative positions of stars, planets and comets in our galaxy and others. The satellite made 3 trillion observations and mapped 2 billion stars: Its last job was completed on 1 January this year. Thereafter, Gaia was rendered redundant when its supply of cold gas propellant was close to exhaustion. On 27 March, Gaia’s main engine was fired for a final time as it was boosted into a parking orbit 10 million kilometres from earth. With its job done, ESA scientists have decommissioned the satellite’s layers of redundancy and deliberately corrupted the software that would have attempted a reboot had it been left in its original state. It has been a laborious process because, as the Gaia spacecraft operator Tiago Nogueira says, “Spacecraft really don’t want to be switched off” and decommissioning them isn’t just a matter of flicking a single switch. The satellites’s central computer and communications system were the last to be decommissioned and Gaia is now guaranteed to be non-operational. By the way, calculations show the Milky Way will collide with the Andromeda galaxy in about 4.5 billion years’  time and the resultant fireworks might be enough to kick-start Gaia one more time. You never know…

– The staff, TelecomTV