At Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2025, Huawei emphasised the urgent need for operators to construct future-proof optical networks to capitalise on the surge in data demand driven by AI-powered applications.

Safaricom M-Pesa announced on Monday it is partnering with Ethiopian fintech startup LakiPay Financial Technologies to enhance digital payment services in Ethiopia.

Indonesia’s Telkom Group announced on Monday that it plans to implement Meta’s Llama open-source AI model into the customer chatbots of its enterprise clients to encourage them to adopt WhatsApp as a customer channel.

Japan’s NTT Data announced on Monday that its long-awaited Malaysia, India, Singapore Transit (MIST) subsea cable system will be commissioned by June this year as it also outlined plans to double its data centre capacity in India over the next few years.

The three partners behind MANTA, a new subsea cable system connecting Mexico and the USA with Central and Latin America, have announced that  SubCom, which engineers, manufactures, and installs subsea fibre optic data cables, has been awarded a contract for the design, manufacture and installation of the MANTA system.

In what is described as a groundbreaking step towards accelerating Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0 adoption in India, technology giant Ericsson, Volvo Group, a leading manufacturers of trucks, buses, construction equipment and marine and industrial engines, and operator Bharti Airtel have announced a research partnership to explore the potential of extended reality (XR), digital twin technologies and AI in the manufacturing sector.

Wholesale connectivity provider WIOCC has joined forces with iColo, a carrier-neutral data centre provider, in a strategic colocation agreement aimed at accelerating the growth of internet service providers (ISPs) in Mombasa, a coastal city in southeastern Kenya, and across the country.

Malaysian operator Maxis has introduced a Gen AI assistant, Mia (Maxis Intelligent Assistant), developed in collaboration with AWS for its B2B subscribers.

Veon Group has appointed Singapore-based operator StarHub’s consumer chief, Johan Buse (pictured), as the new CEO of its Banglalink unit, in a move to accelerate its digital expansion in emerging markets.

The Zambia Tourism Agency (ZTA) and operator Airtel Zambia have signed what the two groups describe as a landmark memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enhance tourism planning and development using anonymised telecommunications data.

During MWC Barcelona 2025, the World Broadband Association (WBBA) hosted an industry summit themed "Smarter Broadband: Investment. Innovation. Intelligence."

Bangladesh Satellite Company Limited (BSCL), the country’s sole satellite company, reportedly met with Starlink officials on Sunday to discuss partnership options for fast-tracking the LEO satellite operator’s entry into the market in the next couple of months.

Qatar-based Ooredoo Group announced on Sunday it has signed a landing party agreement with Iraqi Telecommunications and Post Company (ITPC) to land Ooredoo’s planned Fibre in Gulf (FIG) subsea cable in Iraq.

SpaceX’s LEO satellite operator Starlink has officially launched services in Niger, while also obtaining its operator licence for Chad some four months after the licence was approved.

Operator Ooredoo Qatar and tech giant Ericsson have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to accelerate digital transformation for enterprises and public sector organisations in Qatar.

A new company called VSData has announced plans to build a spring water-cooled data centre outside Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. It is expected to be a 2MW, 125-rack facility.

At MWC Barcelona 2025, ZTE won the "GSMA Foundry Innovation Award" at the GLOMO Awards 2025 for its Minimalist Private 5G-A solution.

Ericsson revealed on Thursday it has signed a strategic partnership with TIM Brasil to consolidate and modernize its billing systems using Ericsson’s cloud-native billing solution.

Nokia announced on Thursday that it has signed a three-year deal with Indian telco Vodafone Idea to enhance and expand its IP backhaul network with IP/MPLS solutions across multiple telecom circles in India to boost 4G and 5G network performance.

Spanish multinational telecommunications company Telefonica has agreed to sell its stake in its Colombian unit to Millicom, a provider of fixed and mobile telecommunications services in Latin America, for US $400 million.

Netmore Group, a global operator of IoT networks, has announced its continued expansion into Brazil and South American markets, following the completion of its acquisition of Everynet, an operator of neutral-host, low power wide area (LPWA) networks.

China Unicom and Huawei co-hosted an innovation summit during Mobile World Congress 2025, themed 5G-A Empowering, AI Transforming, Digital Living.

Malaysian telco CelcomDigi announced on Wednesday it has formed an inter-industry partnership with Payments Network Malaysia (a.k.a. PayNet) to strengthen digital security in financial transactions using CelcomDigi’s open network APIs under the GSMA Open Gateway initiative.

SpaceX announced its second Starlink operator partnership in India on Wednesday – this one with Jio Platforms – just a day after establishing a partnership with Bharti Airtel in anticipation of Starlink getting regulatory approvals to operate in the country.

Brazil’s giant state-owned oil and gas company Petrobras has launched a tender aimed at enhancing its data processing and storage capabilities.

Ugandan MPs have adopted a proposal for a single SIM card policy, which aims to simplify communication across the country’s networks. It also means, in theory, that mobile phone customers will not need to carry multiple SIM cards or handsets.

Canal+ Telecom tapped Nokia to upgrade its fibre network French Guiana and Guadeloupe, to deploy a future-proof network and meet growing demand in the regions.

Pan-African telecommunications and network services provider Paratus Group has announced that, having secured the necessary regulatory licenses, it has launched a new division called Paratus Tanzania through a joint venture with Tanzanian company Green Telecom.

At Mobile World Congress 2025, China Unicom and Huawei co-hosted an innovation summit focused on the impact that 5G-A and AI will have in transforming our digital lives.

Global satellite operator SES says it has signed a partnership agreement with direct-to-device (D2D) satellite startup Lynk Global to target the D2D segment with integrated services – with SES also providing Series B funding for Lynk as part of the deal.

Satellite operators Space42 and Viasat said on Tuesday they have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore ways to develop a 5G non-terrestrial network (NTN) ecosystem for direct-to-device (D2D) satellite services.

Indian telco Bharti Airtel announced on Tuesday it has signed an agreement with SpaceX to offer its Starlink service in India once the LEO satellite operator gets regulatory clearance to operate in the country.

Rather than being just a “hot topic” for the next few years, AI will impact every aspect of every user’s life and be adopted by mobile operators as a productivity tool to create value, reduce costs and boost network ROI, according to Chief Marketing Officer of Huawei Wireless Networks, Zhao Dong.

Intelsat and MaxIQ Space are expanding efforts to deliver Intelsat’s Africa Space STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) Program to schools in four different countries across Africa.