• Equinix unveils $15bn datacentre joint venture plan
• NTT Docomo, Samsung team up for AI in the RAN
• Nvidia rival Cerebras files for IPO

In today’s industry news roundup: Datacentre giant has teamed up with two investors to form a $15bn joint venture that will fund more datacentre facilities; South Korean tech giant Samsung is to collaborate with Japanese operator NTT Docomo on the application of AI in next-generation radio access networks, including those in the 6G era; AI chip developer Cerebras Systems has filed for an IPO that could value it at almost $8bn, but at least one industry analyst has concerns; and much more!

Datacentre giant Equinix is setting up a joint venture (JV) with Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) to raise at least $15bn in capital to invest in new datacentre facilities. “Driven by increasing artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud growth, the JV is intended to accelerate the Equinix xScale datacentre portfolio, which enables hyperscale companies to add core deployments to their existing access point footprints at Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) datacentres. At full buildout, this new JV will nearly triple the investment capital of the Equinix xScale programme. With the capital raised through the JV, Equinix expects the JV to purchase land to build new state-of-the-art xScale facilities on multiple greater-than-100-megawatt (MW) campuses in the US, eventually adding more than 1.5 gigawatts of new capacity for hyperscale customers,” stated Equinix in this announcement. CPP Investments and GIC will each control a 37.5% stake in the JV, and Equinix will own a 25% stake. “As the world’s leading companies build out their infrastructure to support key workloads, such as artificial intelligence, they require the combination of large-scale datacentre footprints optimised for AI training and interconnection nodes for the most efficient inferencing,” noted Equinix president and CEO Adaire Fox-Martin. “Our xScale and IBX offerings are uniquely positioned to address this business need, enabling companies to realise the powerful potential of AI,” she added.

Samsung and NTT Docomo are teaming up to “jointly research the application of AI in next-generation mobile communications technology,” the companies have announced. “As AI technology expands across various industries and 6G communication becomes in earnest standardised, this collaboration aims to utilise the two companies’ extensive technical expertise and business knowledge to accelerate AI research in communications,” according to Samsung. “The partnership will not only improve network quality but also establish a foundation for the market’s transition into the 6G era… Currently, communication quality optimisation is conducted at the cell site level of mobile communication base stations. Moving forward, the goal is to achieve user-level optimisation through the application of AI,” added the South Korean tech giant. Takaaki Sato, senior executive vice president and chief technology officer at NTT Docomo, said: “I believe this technological cooperation between the two companies will speed up AI-powered innovation in the telecom industry, and it will realise the common vision for future communications such as 6G.” Paul (Kyungwhoon) Cheun, president and chief technology officer of Samsung Electronics and head of Samsung Research added: “The joint research with NTT Docomo will play an integral role in developing AI technology for communication systems. By merging the technical capabilities and expertise of both companies, we will create synergy for next-generation communication technologies.” Mobile operators around the world are optimistic about the impact that AI can have on their mobile network operations, with the main impact still to come, according to a recent survey of mobile network operator executives conducted by TelecomTV – see AI’s main impact on the RAN is still to come – report

Cerebras Systems, a rival AI chip developer to clear market leader Nvidia (as well as AMD, Intel and others), has filed for an IPO that would, estimates Bloomberg, value the company at between $7bn and $8bn. California-based Cerebras has a different approach to AI workload processing than Nvidia in that it develops much larger chips that can be clustered together with less inter-chip networking than Nvidia chip-based clusters. That is regarded as a positive in some ways but also comes with challenges, as seasoned tech sector analyst Richard Windsor pointed out in his latest Radio Free Mobile blog. The company is also still relatively small (especially compared with Nvidia, which is now one of the most highly valued companies in the world with an annual revenue run rate at above $120bn (based on its second-quarter revenues of $30bn and its crazy growth rates). Cerebras reported revenues in the first half of this year of $136.4m and a net loss of $66.6m. The company is well regarded but Windsor noted in his blog that, currently, Cerebras is almost entirely reliant on one customer for its revenues and is years away from being truly capable of challenging Nvidia: Check out his analysis of the company’s prospects in this blog. 

Verizon might yet get a reprieve in a patent lawsuit it initially lost earlier this year. In late June, a federal jury in East Texas ordered the US telco to pay intellectual property holder General Access Solutions (GAS) $847m for infringing two patents, one for technology deployed in its 5G radio access network and one in its home routers, Wi-Fi hotspots and consumer devices with hotspot functionality, as Law.com reported at the time. Now, though, according to Law360, the original decision has been “set aside” and a new trial will decide whether the US telco infringed GAS’s patents. 

French mobile operator Bouygues Telecom is the latest telco to put generative AI (GenAI) to use in its customer care operations. The service provider says that, in partnership with Google Cloud, it has launched a GenAI-enabled digital sales assistant. “This unique conversational agent provides seamless and personalised support to customers in choosing their mobile offer and smartphone,” stateed Bouygues in this announcement (in French). “Users will be able to choose their phone, their plan and their financing method through a simple conversation, thanks to the advice of an intelligent sales assistant powered by generative AI. Developed by the operator’s IT and digital teams using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI solution, this assistant paves the way for the future of conversational e-commerce,” added the operator. 

– The staff, TelecomTV