The latest telecom news includes announcements on Circles, OpenAI, Ericsson, iconectiv, Baidu’s Kunlunxin, China Mobile, Nokia, among others.
AI Push in Telecom: Circles and OpenAI Launch Southeast Asia’s First AI-Native Telco Platform
Circles and OpenAI announced a collaboration to build Southeast Asia’s first fully AI-native telecom platform. The project will start in Singapore through the Circles.Life app and later expand to global telecom partners. The platform integrates artificial intelligence across research, customer support, operations, and customer relationship management to improve efficiency. Circles will gain access to OpenAI’s early-stage models and research. A key feature is an AI agent designed to adapt to customer context and provide personalized services in areas such as connectivity, shopping, travel, gaming, and wellness.
Ericsson Completes Sale of iconectiv to Koch Equity Development
Ericsson has completed the sale of its subsidiary iconectiv to Koch Equity Development LLC, generating approximately SEK 9.9 billion (USD 1.0 billion) after taxes, costs, and liabilities. The company expects a one-time EBIT gain of SEK 7.6 billion (USD 0.8 billion) in third quarter 2025 results. iconectiv, which contributed SEK 1.0 billion (USD 0.1 billion) to Ericsson’s net income in 2024, serves more than 5,000 customers worldwide and provides number portability solutions, numbering services, network and operations management, and data exchange functions. The sale allows Ericsson to focus resources on its core mobile networks and digital infrastructure business, while iconectiv continues to provide critical telecom services that enable numbering systems, interoperability, and secure connectivity across networks.
Baidu’s Kunlunxin Secures $139mn China Mobile Orders
Baidu’s chip design unit Kunlunxin received chip orders worth over 1 billion yuan ($139 million) from China Mobile for AI projects, covering AI chips compatible with Nvidia’s CUDA platform that will be supplied through vendors including H3C and ZTE. Baidu holds a 59 percent stake in Kunlunxin. A Huawei-linked company also obtained orders from China Mobile for hardware based on Huawei’s CANN architecture, an alternative to CUDA. In April, Baidu launched operations of a cluster containing 30,000 third-generation Kunlun P800 chips to support AI training tasks. China’s telecom industry is expanding domestic alternatives to Nvidia GPUs, with Kunlunxin chips providing CUDA compatibility to enable smoother transition for developers and reduce costs of shifting workloads, Reuters news report said.
Nokia and INX-ZA Upgrade Internet Exchange Points in South Africa
Nokia and INX-ZA are upgrading Internet Exchange Points in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban to increase capacity and strengthen connectivity by introducing 400GE and expanded 100GE services through Nokia’s 7250 Interconnect Routers and Service Router Operating System. The upgrades will improve local data routing and reduce dependence on international bandwidth. Johannesburg Internet Exchange, active since 1996, will expand from 7 to 10 data centers by the end of the year, while the first phase of deployment will add 30 platforms across the three IXPs to maintain availability and extend reach. The project uses scalable infrastructure and enhanced backbone links with 400GE connections to multiple points of presence, showing how the telecom industry is innovating to handle rising traffic demands.
Shafana Fazal
