• Microsoft highlights $80bn investment in AI datacentres
• Italy mulls major satellite services deal with Musk’s SpaceX/Starlink
• More details emerge of the network breaches by Salt Typhoon 

In today’s industry news roundup: Microsoft boasts of its AI datacentre prowess as it cosies up to Trump; Italy might turn to Starlink’s LEO constellation for secure government services; The Wall Street Journal uncovers further details of the Salt Typhoon cyberattacks on US network operators; and much more!

Microsoft is on track to invest $80bn in AI datacentres around the world that will be used to “train AI models and deploy AI and cloud-based applications” during its current fiscal year, which ends in June 2025, the company has revealed in a blog written by the tech giant’s president and vice chair, Brad Smith. “More than half of this total investment will be in the United States, reflecting our commitment to this country and our confidence in the American economy,” noted Smith, who used the blog to send a friendly note to Donald Trump. “As we usher in a New Year, we will welcome a new president into the White House as well as a golden opportunity for American technology and economic competitiveness. Not since the invention of electricity has the United States had the opportunity it has today to harness new technology to invigorate the nation’s economy. In many ways, artificial intelligence is the electricity of our age, and the next four years can build a foundation for America’s economic success for the next quarter century,” noted Smith. He continued: “At Microsoft, we see a three-part vision for America’s technology success. This starts with advances and investments in world-leading American AI technology and infrastructure. Second, the country needs to champion skilling programmes that will enable widespread AI adoption and enhanced career opportunities across the economy. Finally, the United States must focus on exporting American AI to our allies and friends, bolstering our domestic economy and ensuring that other countries benefit from AI advancements. The country has a unique opportunity to pursue this vision and build on the foundational ideas set for AI policy during President Trump’s first term. Achieving this vision will require a partnership that unites leaders from government, the private sector, and the country’s educational and non-profit institutions. At Microsoft, we are excited to take part in this journey.” In particular, Smith called out the executive order, approved by Trump during his first White House stint in 2019, that was “designed to strengthen America’s lead in artificial intelligence”. He explained: “It rightly focused on federal investments in AI research and making federal data and computing resources more accessible. Five years later, President Trump and Congress should expand on these efforts to support advancing America’s AI leadership. More funding for basic research at the National Science Foundation and through our universities is one good place to start.” Smith also warned that China is interested in “replicating its successful telecommunications strategy” that was enabled by Huawei’s success around the world. “China is starting to offer developing countries subsidised access to scarce chips, and it’s promising to build local AI datacentres. The Chinese wisely recognise that if a country standardises on China’s AI platform, it likely will continue to rely on that platform in the future. The best response for the United States is not to complain about the competition but to ensure we win the race ahead. This will require that we move quickly and effectively to promote American AI as a superior alternative. And it will need the involvement and support of American allies and friends.” Smith went on to share his/Microsoft’s views on AI skills and exports – you can read the lengthy blog in full here.    

Microsoft isn’t the only big tech firm cosying up to Trump: Mark Zuckerberg has appointed former Republican White House deputy chief of staff, Joel Kaplan, as the new chief global affairs officer at Meta, replacing former UK politician Nick Clegg, who announced on Facebook late last week that he is stepping down from his role as the company’s president of global affairs. Clegg will spend the next few months handing over to Kaplan, who is currently his deputy. Under Clegg’s tenure, Trump was banned from Facebook following the US Capitol riots in January 2021 (a ban that was rescinded in 2023), so replacing him just as Trump heads back to the White House sends a very clear message that Meta wants to be on friendly terms with the new administration and, indeed, Reuters has reported that Meta donated $1m to Trump’s inaugural fund. Looking back at his time at Meta (which was still called Facebook when he joined in 2018), Clegg noted that the company’s development as “one of the greatest global communication platforms ever invented” and subsequent growth resulted in “significant scrutiny and controversy too.” He added: “I am proud of the work I have been able to do leading and supporting teams across the company to ensure continued innovation can go hand in hand with increased transparency and accountability, and with new forms of governance. Today, Meta is a leader not just in social media but in AI and augmented and virtual reality too. My time at the company coincided with a significant resetting of the relationship between ‘big tech’ and the societal pressures manifested in new laws, institutions and norms affecting the sector. I hope I have played some role in seeking to bridge the very different worlds of tech and politics – worlds that will continue to interact in unpredictable ways across the globe.” 

Italy is in “advanced talks” with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and its low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite arm Starlink regarding a five-year, €1.5bn deal for the provision of secure data communications services to the country’s government departments and military units in the Mediterranean, as well as direct-to-cell communications services that could be used in emergency situations, such as natural disasters or terror attacks, according to a report from Bloomberg. The deal has already been approved by Italy’s intelligence services and its defence ministry, according to the report. The Italian government also looked at alternatives to Starlink, including building its own LEO network or using the European Commission’s IRIS2 network that was recently given the green light and funding, but both of those options would have taken years to get up and running (IRIS2 is expected to start offering services in 2030) and would have cost much more (in excess of €10bn). Starlink, meanwhile, already has more than 6,000 satellites in orbit, is offering services in 118 countries and already has 4.6 million customers for its satellite broadband services, which are reported to be reliable.  

It’s a new year but the same old story, as ‘threat actors’ fostered, supported, funded and protected by the Chinese state continue to burrow ever deeper into critical US infrastructure, including, as is now widely reported, telecom systems and networks. According to a report published over the weekend by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) (subscription required), the extent of the breaches by the Salt Typhoon hacking group that infiltrated AT&T, Verizon and other US network operators, is still being uncovered: The US government noted late last year that nine networks had been breached, but that number could still rise. While AT&T, Verizon, Lumen Technologies and T-Mobile US had been identified as operators that had been hacked by Salt Typhoon (with T-Mobile US claiming it managed to thwart a recent attempted incursion), the WSJ identified Charter Communications and Consolidated Communications, which operate cable and fibre broadband networks, as well as Windstream Communications, which offers a range of network services to enterprise and consumer customers, as other victims of the Chinese hacking group. According to the WSJ report, Salt Typhoon targeted unpatched network devices supplied by security technology specialist Fortinet and Cisco routers that lacked basic security settings to gain access to US networks. In the case of its breach of AT&T’s infrastructure, Salt Typhoon hackers were able to access a high-level account that gave the group access to more than 100,000 Cisco routers attached to the US telco’s network. None of the parties named responded to the WSJ’s requests for comment. US regulator the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed “urgent action” to secure US communications networks in the wake of the breaches, but that action is yet to be agreed and signed off. The breaches are not limited to communications infrastructure, of course: The WSJ also reported that US national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, told attendees at a secret meeting that took place in the White House in late 2023 that a Chinese hacking group dubbed Volt Typhoon had gained the ability to shut down US ports, power grids and other infrastructure targets “at will” and that lives were at risk as a result. As expected, the Chinese authorities flatly deny the country has anything to do with the reported cyberattacks. 

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that China routinely targets the island of Taiwan (the democratic ‘Republic of China’) with a bombardment of cyber incursions. Taiwan’s National Security Bureau has just revealed that attacks on government departments and assets doubled over the course of 2024 to hit the incredible average figure of 2.4 million per day! The vast majority of them originated from the south-eastern coast of mainland China, 100 miles away across the Strait of Formosa. The main targets are telecom, transport and defence networks and assets, but commercial, financial and civil networks are also continuously targeted.

The threat to Taiwan isn’t limited to the island alone, it seems, as the island state is seeking assistance from South Korean authorities to investigate a Chinese freighter suspected of damaging a subsea communications cable off Taiwan’s north-east coast, reports Taiwan News. According to telco Chunghwa Telecom and the country’s Coast Guard Administration, the cable was damaged late last week by the Cameroonian-flagged freighter, Shunxing39: Although the ship is registered in Cameroon, Taiwanese officials say it belongs to Jie Yang Trading Ltd., a Hong Kong-registered company headed by a Chinese national.

It’s shaping up to be an expensive 2025 for businesses and consumers in Nigeria, where the country’s telcos are seeking permission to double their current tariffs which, they say, have not been increased since 2014. Their claim is that 11 years of patience and goodwill has finally worn away to the point that the operators want an immediate, across-the-board price rise of 100% in what is Africa’s largest mobile market. According to a report from The Cable, Karl Toriola, the CEO of Nigeria’s mobile market leader MTN Nigeria, says the company’s costs are growing while returns on the telco’s investments are being increasingly squeezed by inflation and the devaluation of Nigeria’s national currency, the naira. In a statement, Toriola noted: “We at MTN believe we need tariff adjustment of about 100%, I think the industry is pretty much aligned because we are all experiencing the same headwinds.” He added that “global telecommunications industry statistics indicate Nigeria likely has the second or third lowest tariffs worldwide for both data and voice services” and that a major ”tariff adjustment would not only ensure the sustainability of the telecoms industry but also enable companies to maintain and improve the quality of their services. What [such a] tariff [would] allow us to do is to continue to invest, continue to build capacity, build resilience, put in additional generators… to give you stable and high-quality networks.” That said, the CEO seems to be pragmatically realistic about the prospects of the government agreeing to such a sudden, massive increase: “What I try to do is paint a realistic picture without being alarmist,” noted the CEO. He is also well aware that “the government is very sensitive to squeeze consumers’ wallets with the pressures that have come from inflation and currency devaluation on consumers, so I am not sure they will give us 100%, but I am optimistic they will give us something substantial and maybe progressively over the course of the year we can have smaller adjustments that will help us to get back to where we need to be. The truth is that if you have any organisation that is spending 160% of what they earn in revenue, effectively at some point that organisation is going to shut down.” He added that the claim for big tariff rises “addresses sustainability and also enables the regulators to hold the big stick on the issue of quality of service and allows us consequently to invest in giving the quality of service Nigerians deserve.” Toriola’s comments follow a warning issued on 30 December 2024, by the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria that the current tariff regime is both untenable and unsustainable and that its members might have to shutter some services if an urgent review and subsequent increase in prices for all customers is not agreed urgently. The Nigerian government has yet to respond to MTN Nigeria’s pointed intervention in what could well become a rancorous debate. The other mobile operators in Nigeria, a market with more than 210 million mobile connections, are Airtel Nigeria, Globalcom (aka Glo) and 9mobile. 

Lynk Global, which is building a constellation of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites to enable direct-to-cell (D2C) communications, has been forced to extend its deadline to become a listed company via a merger with Slam, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The merger, first announced in February 2024, was due to take place by 25 December 2024, but that date has now been extended by Slam to 25 March this year. Lynk Global, which appointed a new Slam-approved CEO and CFO in November, plans to deploy 5,000 tiny satellites, which it describes as “cell towers in space”, but currently has just five in orbit that are capable of providing emergency alerts and SMS messaging to standard smartphones. The company has, though, brokered more than 40 commercial service contracts with mobile operators around the world, including Globe Telecom, one of the largest mobile operators in the Philippines, Australia’s Telstra, Turkcell and Altice Portugal. The news is the latest in a flurry of developments in the D2C sector: In late December,  Kyivstar, the mobile operator in Ukraine that is part of the Veon Group, announced plans to enable satellite-to-smartphone services to its customers courtesy of a deal with Starlink, and just a few days before that, One New Zealand (One NZ) became the first mobile service provider to offer a direct-to-cell communications service via satellite to its customers, again in partnership with Starlink.  

A team at Scotland’s Heriot-Watt University, established back in 1821 as the world’s first Mechanics’ Institute, is developing a space cluster at its Edinburgh campus, an integral part of which is the Hub Optical Ground Station (HOGS) that will demonstrate and test satellite quantum-secure communications to defend against and counter cyberattacks. The initiative is part of a collaboration involving Heriot-Watt and the Universities of Bristol, Strathclyde and York, with space engineering expertise being provided by the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory (RAL) Space Facility. The optical ground station will support research across a broad range of areas, including space situational awareness, astronomy, astro-photonics, and optical communications. The project is part of major investment into a quantum satellite mission, funded by the UK’s National Quantum Technologies Programme (NQTP) through the Quantum Communications Hub and will be operational this year. The Hub’s in-orbit demonstrator mission is one of two complementary quantum communications research projects currently undertaken by UK organisations under the auspices of the national programme; the other is the UK/Singapore bilateral mission Project Speqtre, which will see the construction and flight of a satellite quantum key distribution (QKD) test bed: QKD enables the encryption of data in a way that secures it against cyberattack by current technologies or by future quantum computers. Heriot-Watt University’s Hub Space Mission will demonstrate satellite QKD from space. The project will use two varying wavelengths to alter the quantum key rate, while quantum light pulses will travel back and be measured to test their strength. The results of the test bed will help enable communications for future quantum space missions and create possibilities for optical, quantum, and hybrid comms networks. The global market for satellite QKD is expected to be worth $15bn by 2035. 

– The staff, TelecomTV