China Telecom has announced the industry's first pilot commercial deployment of distributed training for a large language model (LLM) with 177 billion (177B) parameters, using 1024 GPUs over a 500 km field-deployed fiber link.

Zain KSA says it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Cisco to develop AI infrastructure and GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) for the Saudi Arabian market.

NEC said on Wednesday it has signed a contract with a consortium led by Singtel to build a new intra-Asian subsea cable system linking Singapore and Japan with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan.

Latvian operator Bite is continuing the phased shutdown of its 3G network, announcing that four regions will be affected this week as part of its ongoing network modernisation efforts.

Indian state-owned operator Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) is apparently sinking further into a financial quagmire. It has reportedly informed India’s stock exchanges that it has defaulted on payments of both principal and interest to a group of public sector banks.

Africa-headquartered technology company Liquid Intelligent Technologies has announced a strategic partnership with DropByDrop Water Systems, a global provider of smart water technologies, to drive smart water management across Kenya.

Veon-owned Beeline Uzbekistan claims it has significantly enhanced network quality across five key regions, as demand for digital connectivity continues to rise.

Ericsson said on Tuesday it has signed a six-year strategic contract with Liberty Latin America to deploy 5G Standalone (5G SA) technology for Liberty Costa Rica.

Morocco’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ANRT) has officially invited telcos to submit tenders for 5G licences that will enable them to launch commercial services by November.

LATAM Airlines, a leading airline group in Latin America, with a presence in five domestic markets in the region – Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru – in addition to international operations within Latin America and to Europe, Oceania, Africa, the US and the Caribbean, has announced the launch of its own global travel eSIM.

Recently, China Telecom has used 800G/λ and C+L technologies to provide high bandwidth for a distributed cluster with 1024 GPUs in the field-deployed network, achieving distributed training of a 175 billion parameters GPT3 (GPT3-175B) model through 120 km field-deployed G.652 fiber.

The global smartphone market declined by 1% year-on-year in Q2 2025, marking the first quarterly drop in six quarters, according to analyst firm Canalys. The modest fall reflects continued subdued consumer demand across key markets.

The Kenyan government is inviting suppliers and service providers to support a major fibre broadband rollout, part of a World Bank-funded initiative aimed at improving connectivity between Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

Safaricom Ethiopia’s mobile money platform M-Pesa and Awash Bank announced on Monday they have signed a strategic partnership to roll out digital financial products, starting with an overdraft service that allows customers to complete M-Pesa transactions even when their wallet balance is low.

Saudi Arabian VSAT integrator and ISP First Gulf Company (FGC) said on Monday it has signed an agreement with Arabsat to collaborate on delivering exclusive VSAT and satellite data services across Saudi Arabia.

Two recent news items from Pakistan highlight the country's attempts to manage two very different but pivotal areas of the modern telecommunications landscape: QoS and satellite internet.

A strategic partnership agreement to deliver low-cost satellite IoT services globally is about to support use cases in Brazil, according to the partners Wyld Networks and Myriota.

Zambia’s telecoms regulator has fined Airtel and ordered it to compensate customers following a major network outage that caused widespread disruption.

Ethio Telecom announced on Saturday it has teamed with Dashen Bank and ETTA Solutions to launch a business automation solution that integrates ERP, point of sale (POS) and cash register systems into a single platform.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs (Komdigi) established an AI Center of Excellence (COE) on Friday in collaboration with Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, Cisco, and Nvidia, with the goal of accelerating the country’s AI competitiveness.

Saudi Arabia-based telco stc revealed on Sunday that the 2Africa Pearls cable system has landed in Bahrain, next to Seef District, which it says will reinforce the country as a significant ICT hub in the MENA region.

Payments technology company Flutterwave says it has recently secured a Payment Institution (PI) license from the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), positioning it to help businesses in Senegal scale by offering its full range of seamless digital payment services.

Embraer, a global aerospace company headquartered in Brazil, satcoms giant Viasat, and Latin American airline Aeromexico have announced the installation of advanced in-flight internet connectivity on Aeromexico’s E190 jets, further integrating the airline’s fleet with fast Wi-Fi for its customers.

Two recently announced projects in Indonesia and Morocco underline the continuing drive to power data centres in a sustainable manner.

Curaçao-headquartered data centre operator Blue NAP Americas has partnered with Radian Arc, a global GPU-based infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider, and North American telecoms consultancy Emerging International, to launch the first artificial intelligence IaaS (AI IaaS) platform for the Caribbean and Central America.

At the AI for Good Global Summit 2025 in Geneva, ZTE’s Chief Development Officer (CDO) Cui Li delivered a speech at a workshop themed “Navigating the Intersect of AI, Environment and Energy for a Sustainable Future".

Indonesian tower companies Dayamitra Telekomunikasi (Mitratel) and Tower Bersama are reportedly reviving merger discussions that were abandoned nearly a decade ago, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Ukrainian operator Kyivstar is set to become one of the first European carriers to launch direct-to-cell (D2C) satellite communication services through a partnership with Starlink.

Beyon Money Business, part of the Bahrain-headquartered techonology company Beyon Group, has signed a strategic partnership with EazyPay, a point of sale (POS) and online payment gateway acquirer and payment services provider in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Telecom Egypt, the country's main telecom services operator, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Indian healthcare technology company KareXpert to launch a comprehensive digital healthcare platform managed through a secure national cloud hosted within Egypt.

Indian telco Vodafone Idea’s network expansion continues with the launch of 5G services in Mysuru on Friday, making it the second city in Karnataka to be added to Vi's 5G coverage.

Airtel Money Tanzania says it is partnering with the Tanzania Cooperative Development Commission (TCDC) to expand digital financial services to thousands of farmers across the country.

Vietnam’s three major mobile operators have collectively rolled out 11,000 5G base stations, and the government expects that figure to nearly double by the end of 2025.