Analyst(s): Ron Westfall
Publication Date: November 12, 2024
This insights report examines how telcos worldwide in their journey to becoming AI-native telcos are expanding the adoption of AI to advance and fulfill their sustainability initiatives. AI technology, including GenAI platforms, is key to assuring that sustainable practices improve their organization-wide environmental, human, and economic outcomes. We find that telcos are making tangible, measurable progress, including attaining science-based targets (SBTs), developing ways to reduce waste, and responsibly managing the life cycle of their products.
Key Points:
- Telcos are now better positioned to fulfill their sustainability mission by adopting AI capabilities designed to automate energy management.
- Administering power consumption and its impact on sustainability goals benefit significantly from AI-enabled automated management techniques.
- Expanded AI adoption aligns with industry-wide benefits such as streamlining operations with AIOps and adopting automated AI-driven processes that decrease the complexity and cost of network management.
Overview:
The Futurum Group’s latest insights report, AI-Native Telcos: Ready to Advance Sustainability Goals spotlights how in 2025 telcos are expected to make progress in applying AI technologies to fulfill their sustainability missions, including Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) objectives. This includes actively managing a diverse range of AI capabilities in the drive to becoming AI-native telcos, providing equitable access to AI capabilities as well as establishing responsible AI guidelines. Integral to fulfilling sustainability goals is an ongoing commitment to enact responsible and trustworthy AI practices that promote accountability, transparency, and ethical conduct in meeting sustainability goals.
Futurum Intelligence data indicates the global AI processor and accelerator market is set to experience rapid expansion, driven by increasing demand for AI and machine learning applications, cloud-based services, and evolving competitive dynamics. This is a major impetus for why telcos must use AI to ensure that rapidly expanding bandwidth demands such as AI workloads do not compromise sustainability objectives.
According to forecasts from Futurum Intelligence, the product category consists of GPU, CPU, Public Cloud Instance, and XPU. As shown, all the product categories are expected to grow robustly over the next five years, impacting telco planning for supporting and monetizing AI capabilities and services. For example, the GPU segment is projected to have a 5-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.9% reaching $103 billion, and the CPU segment is projected to have a 5-year CAGR of 28.3% reaching $26.6 billion.
Telco edge environments can prove best suited for fulfilling burgeoning enterprise and business demand for higher bandwidth services that can affordably and securely support and scale AI services in key areas such as AI training/inferencing and assuring AI application performance. Telcos will need to show that embracing AI technologies produces better experiences for customers, the workforce, and partners through gains in areas such as improved operations, more efficient AI experiences, and enhanced customer support.
Key takeaways from AI-Native Telcos: Ready to Advance Sustainability Goals include:
- AI Key to Telcos Meeting Sustainability Goals: By leveraging AI, telcos can make significant progress toward their sustainability goals, reducing their environmental impact while also improving operational efficiency and developing new, sustainable services for their customers.
- AIOps Becoming Essential: For AI-native telcos, AIOps is proving value across AI implementations such as analyzing data to predict potential issues before they become disruptive and streamlining operations by providing a unified view through the aggregation of data from multiple sources.
- Telcos Gaining More Trust in AI: Adopting transparent AI processes is helping telcos build trust, making them more likely to adopt AI-driven automation alongside using enhanced visibility into AI algorithms to help decrease development costs.
By leveraging AI across these areas, we find that telcos can make significant progress toward their sustainability goals, reducing their environmental impact while also improving operational efficiency and developing new, sustainable services for their customers. Telcos need to make sure they align with evolving AI regulations, such as the EU’s Data Act, the Digital Markets Act, and the AI Act, to ensure transparent AI processes are built into their own sustainability program fulfillment and provide customers confidence in using their sustainable service offerings and sustainability assistance programs.
If you are interested in learning more, be sure to download your copy of AI-Native Telcos: Ready to Advance Sustainability Goals today. The full report is available via subscription to Futurum Intelligence platform—click here for inquiry and access.
Futurum clients can read more about it in the Futurum Intelligence Portal. Nonclients can learn more here: Futurum Intelligence.
About the Futurum Communications Networks Practice
The Futurum Communications Networks Practice provides actionable, objective insights for market leaders and their teams so they can respond to emerging opportunities and innovate. Public access to our coverage can be seen here. Follow news and updates from the Futurum Practice on LinkedIn and X. Visit the Futurum Newsroom for more information and insights.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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