China’s top tech giants, led by e-commerce giant Alibaba, earmarked at least CNY380 billion ($54 billion) in compute power and AI infrastructure this year.

While both countries are investing huge sums to emerge as a leader in the segment, they have vastly different goals.

Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei last month pointed out the US is exploring artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence to solve big issues, such as “what it means to be human”.

This is clearly demonstrated by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s bold ambition, outlined in July, to bring “personal superintelligence” to billions of users. It has allocated to up $27 billion to AI compute this year.

Real-world applications
In contrast, Ren said China is studying the adoption of AI in real-world scenarios, aiming to create more value and drive growth, with a focus on improving industrial efficiency, safety and profitability.

The CEO said the key technical requirement for AI is having sufficient electricity and a well-developed information network, two areas where China has a significant advantage over the US. “China has excellent power generation and grid transmission systems, and its communication network is the most advanced in the world.”

He told a gathering of students last month at its Lianqiu Lake Campus AI’s sensing and control capabilities will depend on data transmitted across thousands of kilometres, which will require advanced networks.

Leonardo Dinic, an adviser on geopolitics and international business, highlighted in an article in China-US Focus that while both countries’ AI strategies are globally ambitious, there are clear differences. 

He suggested the US “explicitly promotes the export” of end-to-end AI technology, covering hardware, models, software, applications and standards to allies and firm geopolitical partners, to prevent competing adversaries from free-riding on innovation. 

Meanwhile, China is positioning itself as a partner for Global South nations by emphasising “open technology exchange, cross-border cooperation”, which is less conditioned by each actor’s political alignment, Dinic noted.

Lagging in AI chips
Despite restricted access to the most advanced AI chips, Chinese AI companies, demonstrated by start-up DeepSeek introducing its R1 model in January, are keeping up with US leaders in many categories.

TrendForce analyst Frank Kung told Mobile World Live Chinese AI suppliers have adopted an approach of using a larger number of chips compared with US-based GPUs, such as Nvidia’s. 

He explained: “This entails disadvantages such as higher costs and a much larger data centre footprint when assembling equivalent systems, but it is also a breakthrough strategy that they are effectively compelled to pursue.”

The country’s AI suppliers face disadvantages in upstream supply, such as wafer fabrication and high-bandwidth availability, as well as in process technology, Kung added. 

As a result, their development path is mainly focused on two directions.

First, they adopt a server-cluster approach: while individual chips may underperform compared with leading alternatives, system-level performance is achieved by aggregating a larger number of chips.

Second, they place greater emphasis on AI inference applications. Although their capabilities in large-scale LLM training may be less competitive, they aim to compensate by developing more diversified AI application scenarios, he noted.

The pod advantage
Huawei rotating chair Eric Xu acknowledged at the chip level, the performance of an individual AI Huawei chip is not as good as Nvidia’s, “but at a super pod level, we can deliver the most powerful systems in the market”.

In September, he detailed the company’s roadmap for AI computing platforms, with plans to release the world’s most powerful single system in Q4 2026 and then double the performance with a new launch a year later.

Looking ahead, talk of an AI bubble rages on not only in the US but globally, with downside risks coming from over-investment (possibly repeating Meta’s metaverse overreach) to a lack of electricity to power data centres in some locations.

From a global perspective, Kung noted the major source of uncertainty stems from geopolitical risks. “An unstable political and economic environment – such as export controls, bans or tariffs – could lead enterprises to adopt a more cautious stance, increasing the risk of tightened procurement spending and slower adoption.”

Ren earlier suggested the development of AI will take decades, even centuries, advising “don’t worry.”

Such a “long march” view leaves plenty of time for shares of AI companies to soar to new peaks and for the market to sustain a wrenching correction, and the two countries to continue to battle for the claim of AI champion.

The post AI feature: Chinese practicality vs US idealism  appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The 40-page report stated: “The real tragedy here was the duration of the Triple Zero call outage and the failure of Optus and its contractors to deal immediately with the warning signals they received. At Optus and Nokia, the necessary processes were in place, but their requirements were not performed properly.”

Optus chair John Arthur detailed in a response to the report: “I have made it clear the Optus failures were unacceptable. The board is taking further action in relation to individual accountabilities flowing from the incident, which will extend from financial penalties through to termination in appropriate cases.”

He added sharing the report “underscores our commitment to being open” about what occurred, and it will assist the broader industry in tackling the challenges facing the sector.

The report highlighted a number of key issues. The first was “the very poor management and performance within networks [department] and its contractor Nokia. Process was not followed, and incorrect procedures were selected. Checks were inadequate, controls avoided and alerts given insufficient attention.”

It noted “there appeared to be reticence in seeking more experienced advice within networks and a focus on speed and getting the task done, rather than an emphasis on doing things properly. This behaviour must be rectified to ensure that such mistakes are not repeated.”

The second problem was at the call centre. “Instructions to operators did not recognise that they may be the first alert channel for Triple Zero difficulties.”

The review acknowledged Optus is moving part of its call centre back to Australia and operating that service locally 24/7, which it noted will improve call centre response.

The internal investigation was ordered following a failure of its emergency call network on 18 September that was linked to two deaths.

The post Optus vows accountability following outage review appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The operator noted the debentures, issued by subsidiary Vodafone Idea Telecom Infrastructure, were oversubscribed by a diverse group of investors, including non-banking financial companies, overseas portfolio investors and alternative investment funds.

CEO Abhijit Kishore stated the capital strengthens its momentum as it continues “to scale our network and enhance services”, adding the fundraising “reinforces investor confidence in our strategy and long-term vision”.

He noted it is holding discussions with banks about raising long-term debt to support capex.

The government is considering offering a moratorium on interest on its INR830 billion adjusted gross revenue (AGR) levies and reassessing its outstanding liabilities.

Vodafone Idea is the third-largest mobile player in India with 197 million subscribers at end-September, down from about 261 million in Q3 2020.

The post Vodafone Idea raises $367M to fund growth appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The Communications Authority approved the operator’s application to shut down its 2G network on 23 June 2026.

The company said less than 2.3 per cent of its total mobile customer base remain on its 2G network. It has started notifying affected customers to upgrade their SIM cards and, where applicable, their handsets, the operator stated.

In April, it was the first in Hong Kong to turn off its 3G service, which accounted for just 0.25 per cent of its total mobile user base.

Data from GSMA Intelligence showed the operator was the largest in Hong Kong with 8.5 million mobile connections at end-September, behind Hutchison Telephone, under the 3 Hong Kong brand, with 5.5 million, HKT with 4.8 million and SmarTone with 2.9 million.

Just over half of China Mobile HK’s mobile users are on 4G plans, with the remainder on 5G.

HKT received approval to shut down its 2G network in November 2024. SmarTone stopped its 2G offering in October 2022, while 3 Hong Kong dropped the service in September 2021.

The post China Mobile to be last in HK to end 2G service appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Chair Kim Yong-hun stated Park “is the right person to establish a foundation for sustainable growth under a new management vision”, and drive change and innovation.

Park joined the operator in 1991 and left in 2020 as an EVP.

His appointment requires approval at a regular shareholders’ meeting.

Current CEO Kim told the board in November he would not seek reappointment when his term ends.

He held the role for just more than two years.

KT established a committee to find a replacement.

The post KT names former EVP as CEO appeared first on Mobile World Live.

In an X post, Starlink wrote the deal would connect more than 170 million people in Africa, marking the sixth continent for the satellite-to-mobile service and expanding its mission to cover dead zones.

The satellite operator added the service would begin by delivering data that enables voice, video and messaging, and advance to providing high-speed broadband service.

Airtel Africa group CTO Atul Sachdeva stated in a LinkedIn post the service would begin in 2026 with data for select applications and text messaging, noting the rollout would proceed in line with country-specific regulatory approvals.

Sachdeva said Airtel Africa is the first mobile operator on the continent to offer Starlink direct-to-mobile service, using 650 satellites.

Airtel Africa forged a deal with SpaceX to launch Starlink’s satellite-based broadband services across its footprint in May, following up on an agreement with the operator’s parent company in India.

The post Airtel Africa, Starlink add sat-to-phone service appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Jung explained in a world where market conditions and the business environment are constantly changing, “inertia or sticking to old methods cannot bring about change”.

He said “management will take responsibility for failures”, referring to recent data breaches, allowing employees to “take on new challenges without fear”.

Jung was appointed CEO at end-October and noted the company is changing its core management indicator from EBITDA to return on investment capital, a measure of capital efficiency and value creation which he noted is useful for clarifying mid- to long-term competitiveness and investment priorities.

“This is a will to change the management paradigm to focus on real productivity, which goes beyond quantitative growth and determines how effectively capital has been used.”

He emphasised “we must select and focus on areas where we excel and compete at the pace of global big tech”.

Regarding a leak of SIM data earlier this year, Jung vowed to “rapidly restore customer trust” and focus on fundamental principles including quality, security and safety.

Jung unveiled a major restructure last month, dividing operations into the MNO and AI groups, with up to 30 per cent of top executives reportedly cut.

In September, the company consolidated all AI units into a single entity.

The post SKT CEO calls for bold steps to spur change appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The operator explained in a statement the Agentic Callbot is a phone response service that uses AI technology to handle even complex queries naturally by understanding customer intentions and conversation context in real time. It added agentic callbots can understand various expressions and situations and control the system on their own without prior learning through large-scale language models and knowledge retrieval.

Jung Young-hoon, head of its enterprise AI business, noted it plan to introduce additional agentic AI call centre services by using various technologies.

An upgraded version, the Agentic Callbot Pro, is scheduled to be released next year with the stated aim of accelerating enterprise customers’ digital transformation.

Going forward, LG Uplus plans to introduce an agent service that links multiple LLMs and a speech-to-speech function that processes text-to-speech, voice recognition and reasoning through real-time APIs based on OpenAI’s multimodal LLM.

Last July, the company laid out an AI growth strategy for its enterprise business, with a focus on AI data centres and on-device AI; AI platforms using smaller large language models; and AI-powered services for B2B customers.

The post LG Uplus uses OpenAI models to automate customer support appeared first on Mobile World Live.

CEO Mark Callander explained in a statement it has reached out to all impacted customers about the need to upgrade older devices, adding the impact on users still relying on 3G in Rural Connectivity Group network areas is likely to be minimal as 3G usage on its sites is limited.

“By retiring this legacy technology, we can focus on strengthening and expanding our 4G and 5G networks which carry the vast majority of today’s mobile traffic,” he stated.

In early 2023, 2degrees and Spark New Zealand revealed plans to turn off their 3G networks by end-2025.

But in June Spark pushed the shutdown back to end-March 2026.

More than a year ago, One New Zealand delayed the switch off of its 3G network, first scheduled for mid-2024, to coincide with the termination of 2G services at end-2025.

Data from GSMA Intelligence showed the country had just 56,400 3G connections at end-September, less than 1 per cent the total 4.5 million mobile connections.

The post 2degrees starts 3G shutdown appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The government is looking to offer a four- or five-year moratorium on the debt-laden operator’s interest on its INR830 billion ($9.2 billion) adjusted gross revenue (AGR) levies.

A committee reviewing the matter will seek input from the Department of Telecommunications and Vodafone Idea before finalising the amount due, the newspaper wrote, noting the reduction could be as much as 50 per cent.

In September, the country’s Supreme Court gave the government a green light to again review the operator’s AGR liabilities.

The government boosted its stake in the operator from 26.4 per cent to 49 per cent in April, converting INR369.5 billion of its outstanding spectrum auction liabilities to equity.

Vodafone Idea is the third-largest mobile player in India with 197 million subscribers at end-September, down from about 261 million in Q3 2020.

The post Vodafone Idea edges closer to AGR liability relief appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The case to the country’s High Court also disputes Reddit, a social news aggregation and discussion site, being classified as an age-restricted social media platform. It argues it should be exempt as it doesn’t meet the definition of social media, the news agency wrote.

Reddit claims its platform is a forum primarily for adults without traditional social media features.

Australia’s health minister Mark Butler reportedly declared the action by Reddit was “to protect the profits that they make at the expense of the mental health of young people”.

He compared the action to Big Tobacco’s fight against tobacco controls, adding the country would defend the legal challenges “every step of the way”.

Last month, two teenagers filed a legal challenge against the social media curbs backed by the Digital Freedom Project.

Starting 10 December, Twitch, Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X and YouTube are required to take reasonable steps to prevent children under the age of 16 from having accounts.

The post Reddit challenges Australia social media ban appeared first on Mobile World Live.

MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking and Mizuho Bank are working out details on providing loans, The Japan Times reported.

In a previous move, MUFG Bank invested JPY300 million ($1.9 million) in the chipmaker, which is backed by JPY1.7 trillion in funding from the Japanese government.

Rapidus aims to revive domestic production of advanced chips, and compete with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung.

Nikkei Asia wrote existing investors Sony, Toyota and Honda are also among 20 companies making new investments in Rapidus. The news outlet added the company submitted a plan to Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry detailing its goal of reaching operating profitability around fiscal 2030.

The chipmaker plans to begin mass-production of advanced 2nm chips in fiscal 2027.

It began prototyping a 2nm gate-all-around transistor at a new fabrication facility in July.

The post Rapidus lining up $13B in loans, new investors appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The broad initiative includes setting up a 12-inch, 40nm foundry to help fabless chipmakers develop and test chips with a KRW4.5 trillion budget as well as increasing the number of chip factories to 37 from the current 21.

The investment will be focused commercialising neural processing units and advanced packaging technology. The government also will expand state funding to ensure the facilities have a sufficient supply of power and water.

President Lee Jae-Myung held meetings with executives from the country’s chipmakers.

SK Hynix led the global DRAM market in Q3 with a 33.2 per cent share, marginally ahead of rival Samsung with a 32.6 per cent share, data from TrendForce showed.

In September, Lee revealed the five-year Nation Growth Fund was increased to KRW150 trillion from KRW100 trillion. The investment will be used across the country’s AI, semiconductors, biotechnology, defence, robotics and green mobility sectors.

The post South Korea earmarks billions to maintain memory lead appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The Justice Department is investigating the Hong Kong-listed company for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, with the most recent case occurring in 2018.

Reuters cited sources alleging the Chinese vendor worked out deals in South America that the Justice Department suspects involved bribery.

The Department of Commerce is also reviewing the same facts as the Justice Department to determine if ZTE violated a ten-year agreement reached in 2018 to settle a case related to breaches of US government trade embargoes covering Iran, the news agency stated.

In a stock market filing, ZTE said it communicating with the US Department of Justice and will “resolutely defend its rights and interests through legal means and other measures”. It added the company “opposes all forms of corruption and maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward any individuals who may be involved in such activities”.

Failure to reach a settle with the US government could lead to key US suppliers being barred from exporting to ZTE.

In 2018, the company was forced to suspend global operations shortly after a US government order in April banned domestic companies from selling equipment to the vendor.

The company later complied with all requirements of a settlement to resume operations after agreeing to overhaul its board and management, and had paid a $1.4 billion penalty. A year earlier, it pleaded guilty and paid $892 million to settle the case.

The post ZTE faces possible $1B bribery penalty appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The AI-powered technology verified in the tests automatically applies optimal configurations for each user rather than for the network as a whole based on real-time wireless conditions, the companies stated.

By proactively preventing disruptions, the technology helps users avoid connectivity issues experienced in the past.

Head of KT’s Future Network Laboratory Lee Jong-Sik noted the achievement indicates AI can transform network operations around the user.

Jeong Jin-Guk, head of Samsung’s Advanced Communications Research Centre, said the demonstration is a major milestone which shows how AI can improve user experience on real-world commercial networks.

The AI-RAN technology was applied to users experiencing service disruptions in a field trial with about 18,000 participants, allowing the teams to identify recurring issue patterns and develop user-specific network configurations. The companies then compared the number of disconnections before and after applying the configurations on the commercial network, finding a significant drop in connection failures among users who had faced frequent disruptions.

Samsung is a founding member of the AI-RAN Alliance. KT is also a member.

The post KT, Samsung advance AI-RAN optimisation appeared first on Mobile World Live.

In a stock market filing, the chipmaker stated it is “considering various measures to enhance corporate value, but nothing has been finalised at this time”.

Analysts suggest the potential listing of its treasury shares on a US stock exchange would be via American Depositary Receipts, which are issued by US depositary banks, allowing foreign shares to trade in the US like domestic stocks.

The filing added it will make a further announcement when specific details are finalised, or within one month.

In its Q3 earning call at end-October, the company said due to surging demand for AI memory it had secured orders for its entire DRAM and NAND production in 2026.

At that time, the company noted it will increase capex in 2026 to boost capacity, as it registered record profit and revenue in Q3, driven by rising prices of memory products. It plans to increase the capacity at its next-generation fabrication plant in Cheongju, dedicated to producing advanced DRAM and high bandwidth memory (HBM).

The company hasn’t issued a capex guidance for 2025, but industry sources suggest it could increase 30 per cent year-on-year. Last year’s outlay was KRW16 trillion ($10.9 billion), up 90 per cent from 2023.

SK Hynix led the global DRAM market in Q3 with a 33.2 per cent share, marginally ahead of rival Samsung with a 32.6 per cent share, data from TrendForce showed.

The post SK Hynix looks to US for possible listing appeared first on Mobile World Live.

At the Amazon Smbhav Summit in New Delhi, the e-commerce giant stated with the planned investment by 2030 it aims to accelerate digital transformation, strengthen infrastructure and support innovation across the country.

Amazon SVP for emerging markets Amit Agarwal noted it is “excited to continue being a catalyst for India’s growth, as we democratise access to AI for millions of Indians”.

The company said it has pumped a total of $40 billion in India. Agarwal added the company has invested in “growing the physical and digital infrastructure for small businesses in India, creating millions of jobs”.

The commitment comes a day after Microsoft announced plans to invest $17.5 billion in the country between 2026 and 2029, with a focus on hyperscale capacity.

The post Amazon commits $35B to India appeared first on Mobile World Live.

In a LinkedIn post, Viettel noted all sites support standalone (SA)and non-standalone 5G, with both the core and access layers entirely 5G, delivering speeds of up to 10Gb/s.

The 5G network, deployed with Ericsson, includes Viettel-developed technologies, such as 5G gNodeB base stations and the vOCS 4.0 charging system, the operator stated. Its R&D unit Viettel High Tech also developed a 5G chipset.

In a separate post, Ericsson Vietnam VP Trung Phan added Viettel is the first operator in the country to commercially deploy end-to-end SA 5G, supported by its radio system for the nationwide RAN rollout and full SA core network.

Viettel is the largest mobile player in Vietnam with nearly 79.1 million mobile connections at end-September, data from GSMA Intelligence showed. It is estimated to have 8.4 million 5G users.

It started testing 5G in parts of the country’s two largest cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, using trial licences in 2019 and officially introduced the service in late 2024 along with rival VNPT.

The post Viettel 5G coverage tops 90% appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Fitch Solution’s BMI unit pegged the operator’s spending on 5G infrastructure between 2022 and 2024 at PHP224.5 billion ($3.8 billion), with nationwide rollout 95 per cent completed by end-2024.

Its capital spending as a percentage of service revenue dropped to 26 per cent in the January to September period, which compares to 33 per cent a year earlier.

Meanwhile, rival PLDT also slashed capex this year to PHP60 billion from PHP78.2 billion in 2024. Its spending in 2023 fell to PHP85.1 billion from PHP96.8 billion the previous year.

Despite the reduction in network spend, Globe’s net profit for the first nine months of 2025 fell 14 per cent year-on-year to PHP17.7 billion. Return on equity slipped to 12.5 per cent at end-September compared with 15.6 per cent in the same period of 2024.

Its mobile revenue declined 2 per cent to PHP86.7 billion, with prepaid ARPU dropping 8 per cent to PHP138, down from a peak of PHP160 in late 2023.

BMI attributed the ARPU decline to subscriber base normalisation following the 2022 SIM registration requirement that removed inactive accounts.

Aggressive forecast
It believes Globe is positioned to capture growth from the Philippines’ expanding 5G subscriber base, which it predicts will jump from 31 million in 2024 to 97.2 million by 2034, while ARPU will increase 82.6 per cent over that period.

Globe ended September with 12.5 million 5G subs, behind PLDT’s mobile unit Smart Communications with 14.5 million. Dito Telecommunity had 4.3 million. Collectively, that represents just 23 per cent of the country’s mobile subscribers, with plenty of room for growth as customers replace their handsets.

Matthew Iji, director of data modelling and forecasting at GSMA Intelligence, said the SIM registration push resulted in nearly 30 million SIMs being cut from the books and increased ARPU sharply. Since then, ARPU has been slowly falling.

Iji suggested BMI’s 83 per cent ARPU growth target “seems optimistic”, while data revenue is increasing and allowing for inflation. “It’s hard to believe people will be willing and able to spend that much more on mobile services,” he added.  

Since the forecast is based on mobile, he noted Philippines operators’ focus on 5G FWA should help offset flat mobile revenue growth.

BMI stated translating user growth into revenue gains will depend on competitive pricing discipline with rivals. It argued to sustain ARPU growth, Globe will need to offer more sophisticated financial services to differentiate from new competitors in that sector.

Balancing act
Jensen Ooi, principal analyst for APAC service provider markets at Omdia, told Mobile World Live the Philippines remains a highly price-sensitive market and service providers face a balancing act as they need to stabilise ARPU without sparking a price war, which could erode profitability. 

While 5G has been available for a few years, Ooi said it still lacks compelling use cases operators can rely on to significantly boost service revenue. “As such, they will need to focus on other avenues such as converged bundles, roaming and device sales to drive growth.”

He said it is crucial to avoid entering a race to the bottom on pricing, especially when all three major players, Globe, Smart and Dito, have had to rely on external financing to support infrastructure upgrades. 

Mobile service revenue in the Philippines is still rising, with Omdia projecting it to grow at a CAGR of 2.5 per cent from 2025 to 2030.

With such modest growth, BMI’s aggressive ARPU projection will certainly be a challenge. GSMA Intelligence predicts ARPU will rise just 33.5 per cent to $3.91 from 2025 to 2031.

Looking to other markets in Asia, such as China, profit and revenue growth have rarely seen significant increases following a drop in capex after a new technology is deployed.

The post Feature: Will lower capex drive Globe Telecom growth? appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Reuters reported the pair are holding talks to take DigitalBridge private in a deal that could be worked out by the end of the year.

The global investment company focuses on digital infrastructure, covering data centres, mobile towers, fibre networks and edge computing facilities, with $108 billion in assets under management as of end-September 2025.

Its data centre investments include Vantage Data Centre, with operations in the US and Europe, Malaysia-based AIMS Group and a US-based colocation and edge data centre provider DataBank.

Last month it signed an agreement with KT to develop next-generation AI data centres in South Korea.

SoftBank has been on an acquisition splurge this year, buying chip designers Ampere last month and UK-based Graphcore in July. It also forged a deal to invest $30 billion in OpenAI and is part of the Stargate venture with the AI company and Oracle.

In June, SoftBank chair and CEO Masayoshi Son laid out the ambitious goal of creating the largest artificial super intelligence platform within a decade.

The post SoftBank Group looks to buy DigitalBridge appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The operator, the second-largest in India by subscribers, previously declined to introduce RCS due to concerns over spam.

The newspaper wrote Google recently agreed to integrate RCS with Airtel’s AI-enabled spam filter.

A source told ET the country’s operators now need to work out interoperability, which could result in an interconnect usage charge.

In August, Apple sealed its first RCS deal in India, working with Reliance Jio to enable the messaging on iPhones.

The GSMA, Google and a number of operators created an initiative covering implementation of RCS on Android devices in 2016.

Compared with SMS or MMS, the GSMA claims RCS enables better features across payments, chatbots, location sharing, high-resolution images and videos, and group chats.

The post Airtel prepares to launch RCS with Google appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The financial news platform added the IPO could be completed by early 2027.

A recent CNY2 billion ($283 million) fundraising round which included an investment from a China Mobile fund valued Kunlunxin at CNY21 billion, Mktnews.com stated.

Baidu did not comment on the report.

The subsidiary makes AI chips for data centre servers and forecasts revenue of CNY8 billion in 2026, up from a target of CNY3.5 billion this year.

In October, investment bank Macquarie valued Kunlunxin at an eye-watering $28 billion.

The potential listing comes as chipmakers in China gear up to develop domestic alternatives to imported AI chips as the government pressures companies to avoid Nvidia GPUs.

With the US expanding restrictions on advanced AI chip exports to China, the country is working to reduce its reliance on imports.

Last week, China-based AI computing GPU maker Moore Threads Technology raised more than $1.1 billion in an IPO on the Shanghai stock market. Its shares rocketed this week.

The post Baidu looks to list chip unit in Hong Kong appeared first on Mobile World Live.

In a statement, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant noted more young people are unintentionally encountering age-inappropriate content at a young age, adding the new codes are about “protecting our kids from accidental exposure”.

The codes, for example, require search engines to blur image results of online pornography and extreme violence to protect children from incidental exposure.

The 98-page regulatory guidance covers new codes applying to age-restricted material and existing unlawful material codes and standards. They complement the under-16 social media ban which goes into effect 10 December, the statement noted.

The new rules apply to online service providers such as app stores, social media services, equipment providers, online pornography services and generative AI services.

The post Australia issues guidelines on new online safety rules appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The vendor explained in a statement Airtel’s network APIs will be made available on a subscription basis to developers, system integrators and enterprises using Nokia’s Network as Code platform.

The platform gives developers standardised access to network functions without having to navigate underlying network technologies, with more than 60 partners joining its global ecosystem, Nokia added.

Airtel Business CEO Sharat Sinha noted it is partnering with Nokia on network APIs to enable “the ecosystem to leverage our network capabilities” to automate and build secure digital services.

Arvind Khurana, Nokia’s head of Cloud and Network Services for India, stated the partnership “represents a significant step in expanding the Network as Code ecosystem”, which helps operators make money from network investments, while “fostering innovation in the developer community”.

The post Airtel signs up with Nokia for API push appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Rachel Lord, public policy senior manager at Google and YouTube Australia, expressed disappointment “this rushed regulation misunderstands our platform and the way young Australians use it”.

She declared the law would “not fulfil its promise to make kids safer online and will, in fact, make Australian kids less safe on YouTube”.

The Social Media Minimum Age Act is due to come into effect on 10 December.

Lord argued it “removes the very parental controls and safety filters built to protect them, it will not make kids safer on our platform”, because it will result in children using YouTube without an account.

She added parents would also lose the ability to supervise their child’s account because they only work when they are signed in.

At a press event today (4 December), Minister for Communications Anika Wells stated it is “outright weird” YouTube highlighted the lack of safety when users are not logged in.

She said if the platform is “reminding us all that it is not safe”, it is a “problem that YouTube needs to fix”.

The politician highlighted the origin of the law was a campaign by thousands of parents.

The post YouTube argues Australia risking safety appeared first on Mobile World Live.

In a statement, India’s Ministry of Communications announced given increasing uptake of the Sanchar Saathi app, the decision had been made to not make installation by manufacturers mandatory.

“The number of users has been increasing rapidly and the mandate to install the app was meant to accelerate this process and make the app available to less aware citizens easily,” it explained.

Earlier in the week Apple said it did not plan to comply with the government directive to preinstall the app on all new handsets, Reuters reported.

Criticism
Reversal of the policy comes a day after communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia issued a statement on X clarifying use of the app was voluntary and users would be allowed to delete the app. This went against the original policy whereby the app was unremovable.

Scindia said it could be activated “at their convenience to access its benefits, and they may deactivate or delete it from their devices at any time”.

He insisted the app “is not surveillance, it is a citizen safety tool”, adding it is both an app and a portal that enables citizens to secure themselves through transparent, easy-to-use tools.

Canalys senior analyst Sanyam Chaurasia told Mobile World Live allowing users to delete the app significantly softened the original mandate and reduced the impact on device experience and OEM strategies.

More importantly, he suggested “the real inflection point” will depend on how convincingly data privacy, user consent and transparency are addressed.

“Until strong safeguards and legal clarity are in place, this is likely to remain a developing policy experiment rather than a hard, industry-wide operating requirement.”

Story updated on 3 December at 12.30 GMT to include the latest statement. Additional reporting by Chris Donkin.

The post India reverses mandate on state-owned security app appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Tokyo Electron failed to take necessary steps to prevent the alleged theft by an employee referred to as Chen who was indicted in August, Reuters reported prosecutors as stating.

Prosecutors reportedly stated the company’s unit in Taiwan had a legal duty to supervise Chen and “should bear corporate criminal liability”.

The unit could be fined up to TWD120 million ($3.8 million).

In August, Taiwanese prosecutors charged three staff for allegedly attempting to access TSMC’s confidential 2nm development and production data.

Chen is a former TSMC employee who joined Tokyo Electron and was one of those indicted.

Meanwhile, TSMC is taking legal action against a former senior executive suspected of stealing trade secrets when he retired and moved to a job at rival Intel.

Intel denies TSMC’s claims.

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An Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigation found the operator breached anti-scam rules on 168 occasions between July 2024 and February 2025.

Scammers bypassed identity verification processes to gain control of consumers’ mobile number services and access bank accounts, with customer losses totalling AUD393,000.

ACMA member Samantha Yorke noted the size of penalty “reflects the seriousness and scale of Southern Phone’s failures”.

She added the vulnerabilities in its systems went undetected for more than a year and “should have been identified and addressed much earlier to prevent consumers experiencing this harm”.

The operator also agreed to a 36-month court-enforceable undertaking, requiring an independent review of its processes, regular security tests of its systems and reporting to the regulator.

Southern Phone primarily uses Optus’ network to deliver mobile services. It was set up in 2002 after receiving AUD4.8 million from the government’s Networking the Nation scheme to deliver more affordable services in specific regions.

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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) stated after it took legal action, Google admitted it engaged in anti-competitive behaviour.

Google conceded its actions “had the likely effect of substantially lessening competition”, the ACCC stated.

ACCC deputy chair Mick Keogh said the penalty “should send a strong message to all businesses that there are serious and costly consequences” for anti-competitive conduct.

“Today’s outcome, combined with the undertakings from Google and the telcos, creates the potential for millions of Australians to have greater search choice in the future,” he added.

Google earlier committed to removing certain pre-installation and default search engine restrictions from its contracts with Android device makers and mobile operators.

The operator deals ran between December 2019 and March 2021 and required them to pre-install Google Search on Android handsets.

Telstra and Optus received a share of the revenue Google generated from adverts displayed to consumers when they used Google Search on their Android phones.

In 2024, Telstra, Optus and TPG Telecom agreed not to enter into new agreements with Google which would enable its search service being exclusively pre-installed and set as default on devices sold to customers.

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Sources told the news agency Apple does not plan to comply with the order as it doesn’t follow “such mandates anywhere in the world” as they raise privacy and security issues for its iOS ecosystem.

The DoT sent letters to major smartphone makers requiring them to add the app to new devices in 90 days, Reuters stated.

The app, called Sanchar Saathi, or Communication Partner, cannot be removed by users. It is designed to track stolen phones, block the devices and prevent them from being used for fraud.

The government has defended the order, insisting it is necessary to help citizens verify the authenticity of a handset and report suspected misuse.

In August, Russia ordered all phones and tablets to come preinstalled with the state-backed MAX messenger app, developed by the largest social media company in the country VK.

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