Elon Musk’s Starlink has received government approval to provide satellite internet in Chad, aiming to bridge the country’s significant connectivity gap. With only 12% of the population online as of 2022, the move is expected to bring internet access to remote regions lacking fiber-optic coverage. Communications Minister Boukar Michel confirmed the agreement, noting that better connectivity could spur public service digitalisation and tech start-up growth.
The satellite internet provider, a division of SpaceX, operates in several African nations, including Nigeria and Madagascar, though it has encountered regulatory hurdles elsewhere. In Chad, Starlink’s deployment is seen as a solution to the nation’s limited infrastructure. Elon Musk celebrated the expansion with an announcement on social media, declaring, ‘Starlink now available in Chad!’.
Despite its growing presence, Starlink has faced resistance from state-run telecom monopolies in some regions. In Cameroon, its equipment was seised earlier this year due to licensing issues. Meanwhile, local telecom operators in countries like Kenya are urging regulators to require partnerships between satellite services and national mobile providers.
Adobe has unveiled new AI tools that allow users to create modified images from its stock photo library while ensuring the original creators are compensated. The software giant, known for products like Photoshop, has been rapidly integrating AI into its platform as it faces competition from newer firms like OpenAI. Adobe‘s strategy focuses on making AI-generated content legally safe for commercial use and guaranteeing fair payments for artists.
The newly released tools enable customers to take stock images and modify them with AI to meet specific requirements. Adobe compensates the original image creators as if their unmodified work was used, ensuring fair earnings. Matthew Smith, Adobe’s vice president for strategy, design, and emerging products, emphasised that the goal is to enhance creative possibilities, not replace traditional stock imagery or artists.
Smith also highlighted the demand for flexible content creation. While some users prefer generating images from text prompts, many still need to adapt conventional stock images to fulfil their unique purposes. Generative AI, he said, provides an opportunity for creatives to increase their potential earnings by making their contributions more adaptable.
Ericsson and e& UAE have collaborated to advance the development of 6G technology through a newly signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), marking an early initiative to shape the future of mobile networks. By engaging in technical discussions and exploring key 6G concepts, both companies aim to lay a strong foundation for next-generation connectivity.
That partnership aligns with a shared vision of digital transformation and reinforces their commitment to positioning the UAE as a leader in telecommunications innovation. Furthermore, e& UAE is advancing its 5G capabilities, recently achieving a record-breaking 5G speed of 62 Gbps by aggregating multiple frequency bands with advanced MU-MIMO algorithms.
Additionally, they showcased Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable Throughput (L4S) technology at GITEX Global 2024, significantly enhancing the 5G Standalone network’s latency for critical applications in industrial automation, cloud gaming, and extended reality (XR). These efforts highlight their leadership in 5G and set a foundation for the shift to 6G, supporting the high demands of ultra-reliable, low-latency applications.
At the same time, that collaboration underscores e& UAE’s vision to lead the nation’s digital future and establishes a benchmark for regional advancement in telecommunications. By combining Ericsson’s global expertise with e& UAE’s commitment to innovation, the companies are strategically preparing to transition from 5G to 6G, ensuring that the region remains at the forefront of mobile network evolution.
China Mobile and ZTE have launched an AI-driven Green Telco Cloud solution designed to optimise energy consumption in telecom networks while maintaining business continuity and a high-quality user experience. The solution monitors and analyses key parameters such as server load and network traffic in real-time, dynamically adjusting computing resources like CPU frequency and sleep modes by utilising advanced deep neural networks.
The energy-saving approach has been successfully validated on both X86 and ARM cloud platforms, with notable results in China Mobile’s Hunan and Anhui branches, demonstrating up to a 25% reduction in energy consumption. As a result, the solution lowers operational costs through improved resource utilisation and reduced equipment maintenance and contributes to global sustainability efforts by reducing carbon emissions. Therefore, that technology represents a significant step toward transforming the telecom industry into a more energy-efficient, green sector as 4G and 5G networks expand.
Furthermore, China Mobile and ZTE are committed to further optimising and expanding their AI-driven Green Telco Cloud solution to promote long-term sustainability in the telecom sector. Through their collaboration, both companies emphasise the importance of technological innovation in achieving environmental goals while simultaneously enhancing telecom operators’ corporate image and competitiveness. Additionally, they plan to drive the widespread adoption of energy-saving technologies, ensuring that the telecom industry contributes to a greener, low-carbon future.
Elon Musk’s social media platform X is testing a free version of its AI chatbot, Grok, which was previously exclusive to premium subscribers. Over the weekend, reports surfaced from users and researchers indicating that some free accounts in regions like New Zealand now have access to the AI tool. While usage is capped to 10 queries every two hours for the Grok-2 model, this marks a significant expansion of the technology’s reach.
Grok, developed by Musk’s company xAI, launched earlier this year with advanced features like image generation and understanding, powered by Black Forest Labs’ FLUX.1 model. Previously available only to paying users, the decision to extend limited access to free users may reflect xAI’s strategy to grow its user base and improve feedback for refining its technology.
To use Grok for free, accounts must be at least seven days old and linked to a phone number. This move positions xAI to compete with AI giants like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, while also potentially bolstering its valuation, which reportedly reached $40B in recent funding discussions. This test of free access could accelerate Grok’s development cycle and further establish xAI in the competitive AI market.
Universities across the EU and UK are set to introduce metaverse-based courses, where students can attend classes in digital replicas of their campuses. Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, announced the launch of Europe’s first ‘metaversities,’ immersive digital twins of real university campuses. With the help of Meta’s VR partner VictoryXR, students can explore campus grounds, work on projects, and participate in simulations from their VR headsets or PCs, offering a more interactive experience than traditional video calls.
Several institutions are embracing the metaverse: the UK’s University of Leeds started metaverse courses in theater this fall, while Spain’s University of the Basque Country will introduce virtual physiotherapy and anatomy classes by February 2025. In Germany, schools in Hannover will launch immersive classes by the start of the 2025 school year. VictoryXR, which has collaborated with over 130 campuses worldwide, sees these “digital twin” campuses as ideal for field trips, group experiments, and real-time assignments.
Meta has provided VR headsets to educators at numerous universities in the US and UK, including Imperial College London, to encourage innovative teaching in fields such as science and language arts. According to Meta, these metaversities mark a ‘significant leap forward’ in education, creating interactive and engaging learning environments.
AI companies, including OpenAI, are shifting away from the ‘bigger is better’ philosophy for training models. Instead, they are developing techniques that allow algorithms to ‘think’ in more human-like ways. These methods aim to address challenges such as massive energy consumption, hardware failures, and data scarcity that have hindered advancements in large language models.
OpenAI’s new model, o1, uses a technique called ‘test-time compute’, allowing it to consider multiple answers and choose the best option during use. This approach improves performance in complex tasks, like problem-solving and decision-making, without needing extensive pre-training. Noam Brown, an OpenAI researcher, revealed that even brief ‘thinking’ boosts the model’s capabilities significantly.
The industry-wide shift has broader implications for AI hardware, especially as Nvidia’s chips have been critical to AI training. Experts predict a move towards distributed cloud-based servers for inference tasks, potentially reshaping the demand landscape for chips. Prominent investors, such as Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz, are monitoring these changes closely as they may impact investments in AI infrastructure.
Turkcell and ZTE have set a new European record by achieving the fastest 5G-Advanced speed of 32 Gbps during a trial in Istanbul on 5 November 2024. The groundbreaking milestone was made possible using ZTE’s advanced 1.6 GHz BW mmWave AAU, 64TR N78 AAU, and commercial CPE.
The significance of 5G-Advanced technology lies in its ability to offer faster data transmission, lower latency, and higher capacity, which will enable a wide range of applications, such as live broadcasting, extended reality (XR), ultra-HD video streaming, and ultra-low latency services. These advancements promise to provide users with an immersive audio-visual experience, setting a new standard for the digital landscape. The improved network capabilities will also open up new business opportunities, particularly in sectors like smart cities and autonomous vehicles, where high-speed connectivity is crucial.
Why does it matter?
That achievement underscores the strong collaboration between Turkcell and ZTE, which has been key to driving innovation in 5G technology. Both companies are committed to continuing their research and development efforts to expand the potential of 5G-Advanced. Their joint work aims to deliver smarter, more efficient, and more immersive user experiences, creating new opportunities for businesses and consumers in an increasingly digital world.
Nokia and Taiwan Mobile are strengthening their long-standing partnership through a one-year 5G contract extension designed to enhance 5G performance and 4G/LTE coverage across Taiwan. The expansion follows Taiwan Mobile’s recent merger with Taiwan Star, positioning the operator for the 5G-Advanced era and significantly boosting service quality for its 10 million customers, including those in rural regions.
As part of the contract, Nokia will introduce its advanced AirScale equipment in Taiwan for the first time, deploying high-capacity, energy-efficient solutions such as the ReefShark System-on-Chip and Massive MIMO radios. Furthermore, Carrier Aggregation technology will be integrated to combine spectrum bands, thus improving data rates, throughput, and network capacity.
Overall, these upgrades directly support Taiwan Mobile’s commitment to exceptional service and environmental sustainability, with thousands of LTE sites set to be modernised for increased energy efficiency. In addition, Nokia and Taiwan Mobile are jointly committed to delivering robust connectivity nationwide.
By using advanced, energy-efficient technology, they aim to support Taiwan Mobile’s 10 million customers, including over 1 million IoT devices. Consequently, the partnership ensures that users in both urban and rural areas can experience the full benefits of 5G, thereby advancing Taiwan’s digital landscape and enhancing nationwide connectivity.
NTT DATA and Google Cloud have partnered to launch a new subsea cable linking Saudi Arabia and Egypt through the Red Sea to expand regional connectivity. The cable, owned by Mobily, connects the Arabian Gulf to Egypt’s Red Sea landing station and integrates with multiple subsea cable systems in Egypt.
This launch follows a memorandum of understanding signed two years ago between the two companies, marking a significant milestone in regional telecommunications development. The new cable is designed to extend an existing subsea network, enabling the operator to handle increased telecom traffic and improve communication flexibility between the Middle East and Europe.
The cable is also seen as a crucial step in strengthening Saudi Arabia’s position as a leading international hub for telecommunications services and data traffic, aligning with the goals of Saudi Vision 2030. The project underscores a commitment to expanding infrastructure and enhancing regional and international capabilities. Additionally, the partnership complements the newly established landing station in Sharm El Sheikh, with plans to develop new crossing routes to the Mediterranean Sea.
