Yet another India-Southeast Asia undersea cable is in the news after an announcement that a consortium plans to build a new undersea cable linking India with Malaysia and Singapore.

Communications technology giant Tata Communications has announced strategic investments in subsea cable infrastructure to strengthen its connectivity solutions between the emerging AI hubs of Mumbai and Chennai in India and Singapore.

The approval, early last week, of the installation of Google’s underwater cable linking Chile to Asia-Pacific means the Humboldt Cable, as it is known, is on track to be installed in the last quarter of 2026 and become operational in 2028.

China Mobile, the GSMA, Huawei and other partners have officially launched “OpenAN”, an open-source project that aims to enable collaboration and interoperability between O&M agents in autonomous networks, allowing them to evolve to Level 4 autonomy.

A hot topic at MWC Shanghai 2026 is AI tokens that enable telcos to monetise AI services. Chinese telcos are already doing it – but that market's unique environment raises questions over how telcos outside of China can follow their lead.

Amazon has announced plans to invest an additional US$13 billion to expand AI and cloud infrastructure in India, taking its total investment in the country to US$48 billion between 2026 and 2030.

Philippine operator Globe Telecom has secured a PHP5 billion (US$88 million) loan from BDO Unibank to help fund capital expenditure, refinance debt and support general corporate requirements.

Yet another deal has kept the Philippines in the technology news in recent days. The Philippines Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and Google Cloud have announced an expanded, multi-year collaboration to embed enterprise AI into the country’s public service delivery.

True IDC, the largest data centre and cloud service provider in Thailand, has announced what it calls a continuous investment of over THB6 billion (about US$182.1 million) and held a groundbreaking ceremony for its seventh data centre in Northern Bangkok.

A strategic partnership announced last week in the Philippines continues the trend towards using IoT to enhance business and public service efficiency across a wide range of use cases.

Chinese vendor Huawei has announced a patent licensing royalty rate of US$0.50 per device for products compliant with the Wi-Fi 7 standard, as it seeks to provide greater transparency around its intellectual property licensing framework.

It’s being widely reported that Indian telecommunications company Reliance Jio is planning to develop and launch its own low Earth orbit (LEO) constellation of 1,600-1,650 satellites at an altitude of about 650 kilometres in the next two to three years.

Satellite communications giant Viasat and Indian deep-tech company WiSig Networks say they have officially launched global testing of a newly developed Made in India 5G satellite Internet of Things (IoT) chipset.

There are signs that some mobile connectivity is now available on Mumbai Metro 3’s relatively new underground Aqua Line, after a number of delays.

There’s been further good news for India’s number three operator Vodafone Idea (aka Vi) after the announcement of a major investment.

KKR, Nvidia, the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) and power company Vistra have launched Helix Digital Infrastructure, a new company backed by more than US$10 billion in capital to build AI infrastructure for hyperscalers.

Multinational technology company Meta Platforms has announced plans to lease an AI-ready data centre to be built by Indian conglomerate Reliance ​Industries. It is described as Meta’s first AI-enabled data centre in the country.

There may be even better news for two Indian operators – and notably Vodafone Idea – on outstanding spectrum charges following an Indian High Court ruling on Monday.

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) has selected Nokia to modernise its mobile network across Indonesia, deploying advanced 5G radio access network (RAN) technologies and laying the groundwork for AI-powered services.

DayOne Data Centers Limited, a Singapore-headquartered global digital infrastructure platform, signed late last week what it calls landmark renewable energy supply agreements in the Malaysian market with local companies TNB Renewables and TNB Power Generation.

The Government of Maharashtra in Western India has signed a letter of intent (a preliminary, non-binding agreement similar to a memorandum of understanding or MoU) with hyperscale data centre specialist AirTrunk for a data centre deal potentially worth 2 trillion rupees (about US$21 billion).

BDx Data Centers (BDx), a leading owner and operator of data centres in Asia, has announced what it calls “a series of transformative power milestones” in a strategic partnership with electrical utility PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN).

The diversified infrastructure firm Anant Raj has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government of the North Indian state of Haryana to invest approximately INR250 billion (about US$2.62 billion) in the development of a large-scale data centre in the state.

Papua New Guinea’s state-owned telco Telikom PNG has joined the Starlink bandwagon after announcing it has signed a deal to become the country’s second authorised Starlink reseller as of last Friday.

DDSP, a developer of hyperscale digital and decarbonised energy infrastructure across Asia-Pacific, has announced the successful financial close of a US$283 million green financing for the company’s hyperscale data centre campus in Johor, Malaysia, incorporating AI-ready liquid cooling technology.

FLAG has launched a new subsea route between Chennai and Singapore, adding capacity and route diversity along one of Asia’s busiest connectivity corridors.

Telenor IoT, a leading global provider of IoT connectivity, and Sateliot, a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation based on the 5G standard, have announced a strategic partnership that they say represents a significant milestone in expanding global IoT coverage.

A number of news outlets are reporting that tech giant Samsung Electronics is planning to invest about US$1.5 billion in Vietnam to build a semiconductor testing plant, though neither the company nor the country have formally confirmed this.

Digicel PNG announced on Wednesday it is now authorised to resell Starlink’s LEO satellite broadband services to businesses across Papua New Guinea, a month after a government ban on Starlink operations was rescinded.

Avelacom, a ultra-low latency connectivity and infrastructure provider, says it has launched a new direct low-latency route between Bangkok and Tokyo, which, it says, delivers less than 65 ms round-trip delay (RTD).