Telco Trends Recap: AI-RAN Brings AI to the Edge

There was an undoubtedly a more upbeat tone at Mobile World Congress this year, punctuated by a post-Covid record crowd of 109,000 people attending this goliath communications trade conference in Barcelona. And the excitement centered on two macro themes: 1) A comeback in capital spending as 5G standalone (SA) deployments reach critical mass; and 2) The excitement about AI and what it means for telecommunications.

At a pre-MWC kickoff conference hosted by Nokia, outgoing CEO Pekka Lundmark dove right into the optimism, pointing to Nokia’s comeback with the renewed surge in spending.

“The markets are coming back,” said Lundmark. “We had 9% growth in Q4.” Lundmark, who retired at the end of March to make way for new CEO Justin Hotard, pointed to Nokia’s deployment of 120 standalone core networks across the world. He also believes “it is still a fairly early stage.”

Tracking 5G With Cloud Tracker Pro

Others at the conference concurred with the bullish view on 5G SA. Michael Clegg, VP and GM of 5G and Edge for Supermicro, told Futuriom in Barcelona that he believes a lot of the 5G story was derailed by early hype and deployment of hybrid 5G architectures that were not really 5G.

"5G with nonstandalone confused the market,” said Clegg. “It was really 4G+. Real 5G is 5G standalone. So, in a way, 5G is only coming to market now. The benefits are starting to show up, it's started with 5G SA."

According to Futuriom’s Cloud Tracker Pro research, 5G SA now comprises roughly one-third of the worldwide 5G services roster. As that percentage grows, so will the emerging opportunities for telcos to deliver new AI-related services.

Telcos Positioned to Help AI Inferencing

One of the main predictions to emerge from MWC 2025 was the opportunity for telcos to pursue enterprise demand for AI inferencing. As telcos build out AI-enabled edge infrastructure that’s close to data sources, inferencing, or the adaptation of AI models to specific enterprise applications, represents a potentially lucrative market.

The momentum for inferencing fits with Futuriom’s research on 5G use cases. Demand for smart manufacturing, healthcare automation, connected vehicles, drone management, and other AI-enabled applications top the chart of top named use cases for AI services: