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OpenAI is reportedly preparing a standalone app for its next-gen video model, positioning AI-only short video as a consumer format in its own right. The app reportedly delivers a vertical feed with swipe navigation, reactions, and remixing familiar mechanics that lower friction for discovery and creation. Every clip is generated by Sora 2 rather than uploaded, with current limits around 10 seconds per video. A recommendation engine powers a personalized “For You” experience, aligning with how short-form attention is won and retained today. A notable feature is identity verification tied to likeness usage. Expect provenance signals and watermarking frameworks (for example, C2PA-style manifests) to become table stakes for platforms that remix human likeness at scale.
Lumen is accelerating a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar expansion of its U.S. backbone to match the explosive rise of AI-driven traffic. The company plans to add 34 million new intercity fiber miles by the end of 2028, targeting a total of 47 million intercity fiber miles. In 2025, Lumen has already added more than 2.2 million intercity fiber miles across 2,500+ route miles, with a year-end target of 16.6 million intercity fiber miles. Network capacity grew by 5.9+ Pbps year-to-date, and Lumen earmarked more than $100 million to push 400Gbps connectivity across clouds, data centers, and metros—now covering over 100,000 route miles with 400G-enabled transport.
OpenAI and NVIDIA unveiled a multi‑year plan to deploy 10 gigawatts of NVIDIA systems, marking one of the largest single commitments to AI compute to date. The partners outlined an ambition to stand up AI “factories” totaling roughly 10GW of power, equating to several million GPUs across multiple sites and phases as capacity and supply chains mature. NVIDIA plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, with tranches released as milestones are met; the first $10 billion aligns to completion of the initial 1GW. The first waves will use NVIDIA’s next‑generation Vera Rubin systems beginning in the second half of 2026.
Gartner’s latest outlook points to global AI spend hitting roughly $1.5 trillion in 2025 and exceeding $2 trillion in 2026, signaling a multi-year investment cycle that will reshape infrastructure, devices, and networks. This is not a short-lived hype curve; it is a capital plan. Hyperscalers are pouring money into data centers built around AI-optimized servers and accelerators, while device makers push on-device AI into smartphones and PCs at scale. For telecom and enterprise IT leaders, the message is clear: capacity, latency, and data gravity will dictate where value lands. Spending is broad-based. AI services and software are growing fast, but the heavy lift is in hardware and cloud infrastructure.
Lumen has introduced Wavelength RapidRoutes, a pre-engineered 100G/400G service with a 20-day delivery SLA aimed at removing months-long bottlenecks from enterprise and hyperscaler connectivity. The company is packaging pre-defined, high-demand optical paths as a catalog of ready-to-deploy waves, removing custom design cycles from many standard routes. Lumen’s RapidRoutes offers 100G and up to 400G wavelength services on prioritized intercity routes with an industry-forward 20-day service delivery SLA, shifting the customer experience from quote-engineer-build to select-provision-activate on pre-engineered paths. A portal-enabled experience with AI-driven tools and more than 300 automated workflows underpins ordering, change management, and capacity scaling.
Microsoft is preparing to license Anthropic’s Claude models for Microsoft 365, signaling a multi-model strategy that reduces exclusive reliance on OpenAI across Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. According to multiple reports, Microsoft plans to integrate Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4 alongside OpenAI’s models to power Microsoft 365 Copilot features, including content generation and slide design in PowerPoint. This is a notable pivot from a single-model default to a best-of-breed approach that routes tasks to the model that performs best for a given function. For enterprises, especially in regulated and mission-critical domains like telecom, the shift implies more resilience, better accuracy for specialized tasks, and new options to optimize for quality, cost, and latency.
AI buildouts and multi-cloud scale are stressing data center interconnect, making high-capacity, on-demand metro connectivity a priority for enterprises. Training pipelines, retrieval-augmented generation, and model distribution are shifting traffic patterns from north-south to high-volume east-west across metro clusters of data centers and cloud on-ramps. This is the backdrop for Lumen Technologies push to deliver up to 400Gbps Ethernet and IP Services in more than 70 third-party, cloud on-ramp ready facilities across 16 U.S. metro markets. The draw is operational agility: bandwidth provisioning in minutes, scaling up to 400Gbps per service, and consumption-based pricing that aligns spend with variable AI and data movement spikes.
Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS 12.1 Orion steps into this gap with a quantum-ready roadmap, a unified multicloud security fabric, expanded AI-driven protections and a new generation of next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) designed for data centers, branches and industrial edge. The release also pushes management into a single operational plane via Strata Cloud Manager, targeting lower operating cost and faster incident response. PAN-OS 12.1 automatically discovers workloads, applications, AI assets and data flows across public cloud and hybrid environments to eliminate blind spots. It continuously assesses posture, flags misconfigurations and exposures in real time and deploys protections in one click across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.
Lumen surpassing 1,000 customers on its Network-as-a-Service platform is a clear marker for where enterprise networking is headed. AI adoption, multi-cloud architectures, and distributed applications are pushing organizations toward on-demand, software-driven connectivity. Lumens platform bundles three core service types under a single digital experience. The platform integrates with major hyperscalers, enabling direct paths to AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. All can be provisioned self-service, scaled up or down based on demand, and stitched to cloud regions and third-party data centers via cloud on-ramps.
NTT DATA has launched a Global Microsoft Cloud Business Unit to help enterprises worldwide accelerate AI-powered cloud transformation. Backed by 24,000 Microsoft-certified specialists in over 50 countries, the unit focuses on cloud-native modernization, cybersecurity, Agentic AI orchestration, and sovereign cloud adoption. With deep integration into Microsoft’s engineering and sales ecosystem, NTT DATA aims to deliver secure, scalable, and compliant digital transformation at global scale.
In Q3 2025, Microsoft announced a robust revenue increase to $70.1 billion, driven by its cloud and AI segments. Highlights include a 20% surge in Microsoft Cloud revenue and Azure’s 33% growth, reflecting strong market demand for advanced cloud and AI capabilities.
The telecom industry is undergoing a major transformation. With AI, cloud computing, and 5G SA driving innovation, operators are shifting from traditional connectivity providers to tech-first companies. The Telco-to-Techco transformation is redefining business models, creating new revenue streams, and enhancing digital services. At MWC 2025, industry leaders from MTN, e&, and GSMA will discuss how telcos can navigate this shift and unlock new opportunities in the digital economy.
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