From the newsletter (sign-up if you want it sooner): APAC telcos are accelerating into the AI infrastructure market, building sovereign compute platforms alongside global technology partners – with initiatives from Chungwa Telecom, Indosat Ooredoo, Softbank, plus e& in the UAE in the Middle East. The opportunity is substantial, but success will depend on converting heavy infrastructure investment into profitable AI services beyond connectivity.
Let’s park the Starlink stuff. Juan Pedro has a number of pieces about APAC telcos in the AI infrastructure market; plus there’s a press release from Nokia tagged below about its work on the same with Indosat Ooredoo and Nvidia in Indonesia. Let’s recap, briefly, to get a taste. Telcos in the APAC region have the AI bit between their teeth, it seems – in Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia (plus the Gulf), as today’s news has it. They are positioning themselves as builders of compute platforms, to support the next generation of AI services.
Chunghwa Telecom is building AI infrastructure capabilities in Taiwan. Softbank is making AI a central pillar of its growth strategy, extending beyond its traditional mobile business into AI data centers and compute platforms. As mentioned, Indosat Ooredoo is working with Nokia and Nvidia to develop a ‘full-stack’ AI infrastructure platform to serve regional demand, combining accelerated computing, cloud capabilities and network infrastructure. Meanwhile, e& in the UAE is pursuing a similar ambition through sovereign AI infrastructure initiatives with Core42.
The opportunity is strong in APAC because governments want greater control over AI capacity and data, and the critical digital infrastructure that connects to it. Like everywhere; but the APAC telcos are in a rush, suddenly. They operate ‘trusted’ national networks and have enterprise relationships – so the sovereign AI shtick plays to them. The challenge will be to turn all that infra cap-ex into profitable service, beyond connectivity – and make good on their claims about local ‘trust’ and knowhow, with and against deep-pocketed, sharp-elbowed global hyperscalers.
