Indian telco Bharti Airtel announced on Wednesday it has signed a strategic partnership deal with IBM to upgrade its recently launched Airtel Cloud service to enable enterprises in regulated industries to better scale AI workloads across multiple environments.

Tata Consultancy Services, a major name in IT services, consulting and business solutions headquartered in India, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Indian government group the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) to accelerate the development of India’s sovereign cloud ecosystem.

Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud have teamed with Malaysian state-backed telecoms infrastructure operator Smartsel to launch Selangor Multi-Cloud Services (SMC), a state initiative aimed at accelerating AI adoption and driving digital transformation across Selangor.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) says it has partnered with Philippine telco NOW Telecom to co-design, develop, and deploy scalable and secure digital infrastructure that includes the creation of a sovereign data cloud for public and private sectors.

Xtelify, a fully owned subsidiary of Indian operator Bharti Airtel that houses Airtel’s digital assets and capabilities, has announced the launch of what it describes as a sovereign, telco-grade cloud platform called Airtel Cloud, along with software platform deals in a number of territories.

In what is described as a major boost to South Africa’s digital and AI capabilities, Touchnet, a business-to-business-focused internet service provider, in collaboration with global cloud provider Zadara, has officially launched a sovereign AI cloud infrastructure at Digital Parks Africa’s advanced, carrier-neutral Uptime Tier III Design Certified Data Centre in Samrand in the Gauteng province.

Qatar and the UAE have new sovereign cloud services following separate launches this week from Ooredoo and du that promise a local alternative to international cloud service providers.

Ericsson said on Wednesday it has struck an agreement with Latvian telco Latvijas Mobilais Telefons (LMT) to modernize its subscriber domain infrastructure to support its planned deployment of standalone 5G.

Arkan Solutions, a provider of cloud communication services and session border controller as a service (SBCaaS) across the Middle East and globally, has announced the successful go-live of its PSTN integration service for international express shipping service DHL Express in Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan, in collaboration with British Telecom (BT).

AIS Business said on Thursday that it has launched what it says is Thailand’s first locally-based hyperscale cloud service using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to support AI workloads for public and private organizations.

Robi Axiata’s digital services subsidiary Axentec announced on Tuesday it has launched what it says is the first Tier-IV cloud platform fully hosted and operated in Bangladesh that promises data sovereignty for local enterprises.

Cloud networking and security-as-a-service provider GTT Communications says it has expanded its global Tier 1 IP backbone in nine more countries in the Latin America and Asia Pacific regions.

Amazon announced it will invest $4 billion to build cloud infrastructure for its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division in Chile by the end of 2026.

A reminder of the growing emphasis from governments on ensuring that local data stays within their borders comes from Azerbaijan, where edge AI, cloud, network, and security solutions provider Gcore has announced a strategic partnership with state-owned service provider AzInTelecom.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced plans to embed its cloud technology within Orange’s mobile networks in Morocco and Senegal this year, aiming to significantly improve connectivity speed and reduce latency.

Magalu Cloud, a cloud computing services platform, and data centres and connectivity company Ascenty, have committed to continuing a partnership to support the digital transformation of Brazil’s retail sector.

Solomon Islands operator Our Telekom is partnering with Oracle for an end-to-end digital transformation initiative.

Abu Dhabi’s Department of Government Enablement has announced an agreement with Microsoft and Core42, a G42 company specialising in sovereign cloud, AI infrastructure and digital services. G42 is an artificial intelligence development company based in Abu Dhabi.

Tencent Cloud and TrueWatch have announced a partnership to launch what is said to be Indonesia's first multi-cloud SaaS observability platform.