AI is a part of everything in tech and telecom right now

Artificial intelligence (AI) is clearly the hot topic of 2024, and it's sneaking into almost every new development in the tech and telecom industry. 

It's central to a $6.4 billion equity infusion into Vantage Data Centers, announced Tuesday morning. It's an element in HPE's reported $13 billion deal for Juniper Networks, news of which surfaced this week. It's critical to Qualcomm's story at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week in Las Vegas, and it's at the center of a new job posting from the GSMA telecom trade association.

"The GSMA is looking for a proactive and experienced Commercial & Technical Business Partner Lead to drive our AI initiatives with our members. This role is central to leading our global industry strategy in Artificial Intelligence, including GenAI, and to implementing these strategies with effectiveness and foresight," reads the GSMA posting for an "engagement lead" for AI. "Develop a comprehensive global AI strategy while ensuring adaptability and relevance across different regions" is among the position's responsibilities.

"The rate at which AI is growing really boggles the mind," said Elon Musk, the world's richest person, during a recent discussion on social media. One of Musk's many companies is xAI, which is developing a generalized AI that seeks to "understand the true nature of the universe."

Las Vegas and beyond

The CES trade show is often ground zero for new tech trends – 5G was a major theme at the show starting in 2019 but has since been eclipsed by other topics. This year, AI is everywhere at the show, according to some of those in attendance.

"Even before CES starts, the general theme is clear - AI, AI, AI," wrote analyst Jim McGregor, with Tirias Research, on social media. "From AI in cars to appliances and PCs. The excitement is being driven by the combination of new NPU [Neural Processing Unit] processing and GenAI models."

For Qualcomm, the company's primary business remains chips for smartphones. But Qualcomm for years has been working to expand into adjacent fields. Now it's hoping AI will aid that effort.

"Qualcomm Technologies welcomes the new era of AI for automotive and is leveraging its industry-leading AI hardware, and software solutions, for the Snapdragon Digital Chassis Platform to help drive automotive AI forward," the company wrote in a release touting its new products for the automotive industry.

But AI discussions stretch far beyond the Vegas Strip. According to the Wall Street Journal, Juniper's AI technology is part of HPE's "bid to better position the nearly 100-year-old technology company in the era of artificial intelligence." Juniper's Mist AI business uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to optimize users' experiences around wireless access, noted the WSJ.

But that transaction – which could be made official as early as this week – isn't the only multibillion-dollar tech deal involving AI. DigitalBridge and Silver Lake are pumping $6.4 billion into data center operator Vantage Data Centers in large part to develop more computing power to host AI operations from the likes of Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and other cloud computing companies. That's because new AI services like ChatGPT require far more computing horsepower than existing cloud operations.

"Arguably [AI] has been the fastest adopted business technology in history," Sureel Choksi, Vantage's chief executive, told the WSJ. It has sparked "an arms race between all of the world's leading tech companies."

The networking angle

To be clear, the rise of AI doesn't come as a surprise to companies in the telecom industry. For example, vendors like Cisco, Nokia and Ericsson have made clear their interest in putting AI into their products in order to spur sales.

And network operators are keen for a technology that doesn't need a salary or health insurance.

"We've made much more use of artificial intelligence to optimize our call centers. So our call volumes are down. We've optimized our field dispatch. Our force counts are down significantly. Our consulting and contractor expenses are down significantly," AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches said at a recent investor event, according to Seeking Alpha. "I would expect us to use those very same [AI] plays as we look forward."

Similarly, Verizon networking chief Joe Russo said the company is using AI and related technologies in a variety of ways, including in its network-optimization and network capacity-planning efforts.

But it's clear that the AI industry is still in its infancy. The latest dustup: The New York Times alleges that OpenAI stole its copyrighted content to teach its ChatGPT large language model (LLM).

That's noteworthy considering OpenAI has said it's "impossible to train today's leading AI models without using copyrighted materials," according to filings the company made with European policymakers. The filings were first reported by The Guardian.

The issue might impact companies like AT&T that are using AI for call center operations, but it might not matter to the likes of Juniper that are using AI to improve the transfer of bits and bytes.

Regardless, expect AI to remain a dominant topic throughout 2024, particularly as the telecom industry heads to MWC in Barcelona next month.