Technology Overview
AI is pushing telecom networks harder than ever. Data centers need more power, faster fiber and smarter software, and the companies that connect, compute and secure the world's data are racing to keep up. Telecom and ICT now covers far more than phone lines. It spans 5G and fiber operators, subsea cables, satellite constellations in low and medium Earth orbit, and the chips, optics and test gear that carry ever-higher data rates.
This ebook tracks that whole stack. It covers national carriers such as NTT, BCE, Telefónica and Bharti Airtel, and satellite players including SES, Telesat and Rocket Lab. It includes optical and semiconductor suppliers such as Lumentum, Sumitomo Electric and Marvell, and cloud, DevOps and automation platforms from GitHub to Kubernetes. Research institutes, standards bodies, regulators and specialist media round out the picture. The common thread is clear: network operators are becoming AI infrastructure providers, and software is turning into agent-driven automation.
Current Products and News
- NTT Group made the first investment from its new IOWN AI Fund, backing iPronics, and teamed with Cailabs on next-generation optical ground stations. DOCOMO launched what it calls the world's first commercial multi-vendor deployment of Nokia's latest base station equipment.
- BCE Inc expanded its Bell AI Fabric sovereign AI project in Saskatchewan with up to 900 MW of additional power. It also announced a Cisco collaboration on sovereign AI infrastructure and deployed a sovereign cybersecurity AI model with Cohere.
- Sumitomo Electric USA is collaborating with Meta and NEC on "Petal," billed as the world's first commercial petabit-class optical submarine cable system, built for AI-era traffic.
- CableLabs completed a new DOCSIS 4.0 PHY specification that enables 25 Gbps downstream speeds over cable networks.
- Zayo Group launched "Agentic Networking," which it calls the industry's first production MCP server built for networking. It also closed its acquisition of Crown Castle's Fiber Solutions business, adding 90,000 metro route miles.
- Rocket Lab signed its largest-ever commercial Electron deal, a 20-launch contract with Synspective, and agreed to acquire Iridium. Iridium stockholders have since approved the deal.
- SES Global SA launched the final three O3b mPOWER satellites, completing the MEO constellation. It also renewed multi-year capacity with Sky for the UK and Ireland.
- Liberty Global Inc. (LGI) completed its buyout of VodafoneZiggo and agreed to sell its Dutch towers ahead of a planned 2027 Amsterdam listing of Ziggo Group.
10 Leading Companies
- GitHub (Microsoft) – The Microsoft-owned code platform hosts a massive global developer community, and it keeps a steady pace of Copilot and Actions releases.
- NTT Group – A Tokyo-based global telecom and IT leader that spans fiber, wireless, data centers and managed services, now backed by its new IOWN AI Fund.
- SAP Deutschland SE & Co. KG – SAP's German subsidiary delivers S/4HANA, cloud and data solutions to an extensive enterprise client base.
- Rakuten Group, Inc. – An internet services group spanning e-commerce, fintech and telecom, with Rakuten Mobile passing 10 million subscribers.
- Siemens AG – A global industrial technology company that ranks among the leaders in most of its automation, digitalization and PLM segments.
- NTT Data Inc. – One of the world's largest IT services brands, forging alliances with Palo Alto Networks, ENGIE and Google Cloud.
- BCE Inc – Canada's dominant communications provider, turning its network into sovereign AI infrastructure through Bell AI Fabric.
- VIAVI Solutions Inc. – A global network test and assurance provider whose 2026 launches include an Ultra Ethernet validation solution and a 6G channel emulator.
- RingCentral Inc – An NYSE-listed cloud communications platform posting 5.9% revenue growth and building AI connectors into ChatGPT and Claude.
- Kubernetes – The widely adopted open-source orchestration system behind cloud-native infrastructure, now adding workload-aware scheduling for AI/ML in v1.37.
Get Ahead in Telecom and ICT
This market moves every day. On October 2, 2026 alone, 1,164 companies in this ebook updated their newsrooms. Computer Review puts all 5,936 companies across 121 countries in one place, with 3,351 job pages tracked, so you see the moves as they happen.
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