What’s up with… EC’s grands fromages, AI datacentre funding, Iliad/Free

• EC’s new digital, competition chiefs unveiled 
• Microsoft and investor partners to pump $30bn into AI datacentres 
• Iliad’s Free claims 5G SA first in France

In today’s industry news roundup: The European Commission’s key new digital market and competition commissioners have been named; Microsoft has teamed up with some major global investors to pump tens of billions of dollars into AI-optimised datacentres in the US and the North American country’s friends; Iliad’s French operation Free is claiming a 5G SA coup; and more!

Ursula von der Layen, president of the European Commission, has announced the new lineup of 26 commissioners for the current five-year term, including the six executive vice presidents who hold the most important posts. With the new appointments, made following consultation with member states and the European parliament, come new roles. As a result there isn’t a direct like-for-like replacement for Thierry Breton, the former head of internal market and services who was an influential figure in the digital services and telecom sectors throughout the previous term: Breton was on course to take a major role during this term but was undermined in a political manoeuvre by von der Layen and resigned, very publicly, earlier this week. So who are the main names for the telecom sector to look out for in the new so-called ‘college’ of commissioners? Finnish politician Henna Virkkunen looks set to play a pivotal role in the development of digital Europe: She has been appointed as executive vice president for tech-sovereignty, security and democracy, a role that includes responsibility for “the portfolio on digital and frontier technologies” (AI, quantum computing, semiconductors, cloud etc). Virkkunen’s role looks to be a mash-up of the role Breton held plus that of Margrethe Vestager, who was executive VP for the A Europe Fit for the Digital Age programme. Spanish politician Teresa Ribera will be executive VP of a clean, just and competitive transition, so she will be responsible for competition policy and for ensuring that “Europe stays on track for its goals set out in the European Green Deal and that we decarbonise and industrialise our economy at the same time,” noted von der Layen in her review of the appointments. The president’s brief speech, during which she referenced the recent Mario Draghi report into competitiveness, also gave an indication that the tech and communications sector will be a key area of focus during this five-year term. “The whole college is committed to competitiveness,” stated von der Leyen, before listing a series of key focus areas for the coming years. “Strengthening our tech-sovereignty, security and democracy. Building a competitive, decarbonised and circular economy, with a fair transition for all. Designing a bold industrial strategy with innovation and investment at its heart. Boosting European cohesion and regions. Supporting people, skills and our social model. Ensuring Europe can assert its interests and lead in the world.” Just don’t expect much to happen very soon, as there are months of in-fighting and self-congratulations to be endured before any progress is likely to be made on policies.  

Microsoft has joined forces with investment firms BlackRock, Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) and MGX to form the Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership (GAIIP), which will pump significant funds – starting with $30bn – into “new and expanded datacentres to meet growing demand for computing power, as well as energy infrastructure to create new sources of power for these facilities.” The focus of the investments will be North America: “These infrastructure investments will be chiefly in the United States fuelling AI innovation and economic growth, and the remainder will be invested in US partner countries,” noted the companies in this announcement. The partnership will be supported by AI chip giant Nvidia, which plans to offer its “expertise in AI datacentres and AI factories to benefit the AI ecosystem. GAIIP will also actively engage with industry leaders to help enhance AI supply chains and energy sourcing for the benefit of its customers and the industry,” the partners added. They will “initially seek to unlock $30bn of private equity capital over time from investors, asset owners [and] corporates, which in turn will mobilise up to $100bn in total investment potential when including debt financing,” they added. Microsoft’s chairman and CEO, Satya Nadella, noted: “We are committed to ensuring AI helps advance innovation and drives growth across every sector of the economy. The Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership will help us deliver on this vision, as we bring together financial and industry leaders to build the infrastructure of the future and power it in a sustainable way,” he added. Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, added: “The capital spending needed for AI infrastructure and the new energy to power it goes beyond what any single company or government can finance. This financial partnership will not only help advance technology but enhance national competitiveness, security and economic prosperity.”

Free, the French operation of Xavier Niel’s Iliad Group, is claiming to be the first operator in the country to activate a 5G standalone (SA) network, a move that  (in theory) should provide it with a service quality and portfolio advantage over its rivals (Orange, Altice/SFR, Bouygues Telecom). “Having deployed France’s largest 5G network by number of base stations, Free is today announcing that it has become the country’s first telco to offer 5G 3.5 GHz SA (standalone access) on its public network on a national scale,” the operator boasted in this announcement.  “By making this cutting-edge mobile communications technology widely available, which requires significant capital expenditure and industrial performance, Free is once again demonstrating its innovation capacity and technology leadership. Free currently has the largest 5G mobile network in France, with over 20,000 5G sites in service, including 6,950 3.5 GHz sites. Available in almost 10,500 municipalities, it already covers nearly 95% of the French population… 5G SA is the final phase of the development of the 5G network, enabling faster speeds, lower latency and higher reliability. Its large-scale deployment will allow the full potential of 5G technology to be realised through the massive take-up of new services and 5G applications in many domains, ranging from industry, health, education and entertainment through to smart cities. 5G SA will also enable companies of all sizes and organisations across the public sector to provide their teams, customers and users with a suite of services that require powerful performance capabilities. Its optimal latency, faster speeds and the new network use cases it offers will allow companies to create new services, which for Free Pro – our B2B entity – represents new growth opportunities,” it added. The operator also noted that it has launched VoNR (Voice over New Radio), “a new technology that supports voice communication over a 5G network. VoNR brings new benefits to voice communication: Faster connection times, lower latency, better voice quality and less battery drain,” stated Free. According to the operator, a number of Samsung smartphones have already been tested and verified on Free’s 5G SA network and are ready to support 5G SA services. 

Here’s a market forecast that will warm the cockles of anyone hoping that the exposure of telecom infrastructure functionality via network APIs will result in a revenue boost for communications service providers. Juniper Research expects global operator revenue from telecom APIs to grow from $50bn in 2024 to $11bn  by 2027 and then up to $160bn by 2029 – those are some very bold numbers (that can be found in a report summary accessible here)! The research firm also notes in this press release that it expects almost one-third of the $11bn API-related telco revenues in 2027 to be generated by communications services, such as rich media messaging and conversational AI. Forecasts suggesting the potential value of the network API market to telcos is particularly pertinent right now as 12 major operators have just agreed to form a new company with Ericsson to exploit that particular revenue-generating potential.  

US regulator the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has agreed a $13m settlement with AT&T over a data breach following an investigation by the regulator’s Enforcement Bureau into the telco’s “supply chain integrity and whether it failed to protect the information of AT&T customers in connection with a data breach of a vendor’s cloud environment.” AT&T customer data had been stored by a third-party partner for marketing purposes but not returned or deleted, and that data (reportedly related to 9 million AT&T mobile service customers) was then compromised in January 2023, years after it had been used for the associated marketing campaigns. The FCC noted that in order to “resolve the investigation, AT&T entered into a Consent Decree that also commits to strengthening its data governance practices to increase its supply chain integrity and ensure appropriate processes and procedures are incorporated into AT&T’s business practices in the handling of sensitive data to protect consumers against the harmful effects of similar vendor data breaches in the future.” Enforcement bureau chief Loyaan A Egal, who also serves as chair of the FCC’s Privacy and Data Protection Task Force, stated: “As high-value targets, communications service providers have an obligation to reduce the attack surface and entry points that threat actors seek to exploit in order to access sensitive customer data. Today’s announcement should send a strong message that the enforcement bureau will not hesitate to take action against service providers that choose to put their customers’ data in the cloud, share that data with their vendors, and then fail to be responsible custodians of that data.” That may well be, but a fine of just $13m for a company that generates annual revenues of about $120bn is not really sending that strong a message, is it? 

We’ve been writing recently about quantum-safe networking and the development of technologies such as post-quantum cryptography (PQC) that can protect telecom networks and other digital infrastructure against cyberattacks from ‘bad actors’ using quantum computers to do their dirty work. In that particular realm, the likes of IBM and Nokia are making a name for themselves, as our perception survey (and related report) from earlier this year showed. But there’s also plenty of R&D effort and funding going into quantum communications networking – essentially, figuring out how standard optical fibre networks like those currently used by telcos and hyperscalers can be successfully used to create networks of quantum computers. Nature.com has just reported on a quantum communications network trial in Germany over a 14km urban fibre link and the requirements sound exacting: “Quantum networks require distributed entanglement as a resource in order to enable elementary communication routines like the quantum repeater or quantum state teleportation, or more advanced protocols, such as entanglement-assisted clock synchronisation, phase-coherent frequency comparison of optical clocks, or distributed quantum sensing. This renders the specifications for quantum communication much stricter than for classical communication, especially when dealing with single photons and polarisation-encoded qubits, that require low background and high polarisation stability. It also defines the requirements for integrating quantum communication into existing communication networks using telecom fibres.” It’s sobering to think that the potential for quantum state teleportation is being explored at a time when it’s still hard sometimes to get a mobile data connection in the middle of a capital city… To keep up to speed with developments in quantum-safe networking and quantum network communications, keep an eye on our dedicated quantum channel. 

– The staff, TelecomTV