Category: Communications

The rapid development of data centers connected to the largest US electric grid raised costs by $9.4 billion, an expense that consumers from Illinois to Washington, D.C., will see reflected in their utility bills starting this month.

Overall costs rose by 180%, with the growing energy needs of data centers being the primary cause of tight supply-and-demand conditions, as well as high prices, in the PJM Interconnection capacity market, which serves customers from Illinois to Washington D.C., according to a report Tuesday by Monitoring Analytics, the grid’s independent market monitor.

The analysis from PJM’s watchdog asserts that households and businesses are subsidizing the data center boom being carried out by some of the richest tech companies in the world.

“The current conditions are not the result of organic load growth,” Monitoring Analytics said in the report. “The current conditions in the capacity market are almost entirely the result of large load additions from data centers, both actual historical and forecast.”

The cost for procuring supplies on the eastern US grid jumped to a record $14.7 billion, and would have otherwise been closer to $5 billion when accounting for existing and forecast data center demand, according to the watchdog’s analysis. The biggest increases were in Virginia and Maryland. These supplies were procured in an auction and costs go into effect for one year staring this month.

The data center boom is driving power demand on the grid toward levels not seen in 20 years. PJM said summer peak power consumption may climb by 70 gigawatts to 220 gigawatts over the next 15 years. That would be 32% higher than the all-time high of about 165.6 gigawatts reached in summer of 2006 and exceeds current generating capacity of 183 gigawatts, according to the grid operator.

The market monitor’s report will likely add scrutiny at a technical conference held by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission starting Wednesday debating whether power markets formed through deregulation more than two decades ago are capable of spurring such rapid investments, adopt renewables and still keep power affordable and reliable for all consumers.

At PJM’s annual meeting last month in Northern Virginia, the data center capital of the world, one big data center developer acknowledged that consumers are bearing higher costs.

“We have largely taken advantage of an overbuilt system,” Brian George, who leads global energy market development and policy at Google, said on a panel. “We are now imposing a significant cost on the system.” Bloomberg

Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund is joining a Microsoft Corp.-backed initiative to bankroll $30 billion in artificial intelligence infrastructure globally, as the oil-rich Gulf nation looks to tap into the booming sector.

The Kuwait Investment Authority will become the first non-founder financial anchor in the AI Infrastructure Partnership, according to a statement on Tuesday that didn’t disclose any financial commitment. Microsoft, Abu Dhabi’s MGX and BlackRock Inc. had in March added Elon Musk’s xAI and chipmaker Nvidia Corp. to the initiative.

The investment marks the $1 trillion wealth fund’s first major move into AI under its new managing director, Sheikh Saoud Salem Al-Sabah. Gulf peers have already bet heavily on the technology: MGX counts Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co. as a founding partner, while Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund recently launched an AI firm, Humain, which has struck deals with major players including Nvidia.

BlackRock and Microsoft announced the partnership last year alongside MGX and Global Infrastructure Partners, the firm founded by Bayo Ogunlesi. The companies said at the time they would seek $30 billion of private equity capital over an unspecified time frame and eventually leverage as much as $100 billion in potential investments. The consortium is also collaborating with energy suppliers NextEra Energy Inc. and GE Vernova Inc.

The KIA is among the largest sovereign funds globally and the second-biggest in the Middle East. Its roots predate the modern state of Kuwait, and it plays a central role in diversifying the country’s economy, with investments spanning ports, airports and power distribution networks worldwide. Bloomberg

The US government will require Keysight Technologies to divest three of Spirent Communications’ businesses to resolve antitrust concerns before it buys the British company, a purchase originally valued at $1.5 billion.

D.C., federal court, the US Department of Justice said the divested assets include Spirent’s high-speed ethernet testing, network security testing, and radio frequency channel emulation businesses.

Keysight said in March it planned to sell those businesses to Viavi Solutions, once known as JDS Uniphase, for as much as $425 million in cash.

The Justice Department said Keysight and Spirent together account for 85% of the high-speed ethernet testing market, more than 60% of the network security market, and more than 50% of radio frequency channel emulation.

It said a merger without the divestitures might substantially lessen competition and harm customers.

Based in Santa Rosa, California, Keysight agreed in March 2024 to buy Crawley, U.K.-based Spirent for 1.16 billion British pounds, now about $1.57 billion.

Viavi had agreed earlier that month to buy Spirent, but was outbid by Keysight. Reuters

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched Elsa, a generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool designed to help employees—from scientific reviewers to investigators—work more efficiently. This innovative tool modernizes agency functions and leverages AI capabilities to better serve the American people.

“Following a very successful pilot program with FDA’s scientific reviewers, I set an aggressive timeline to scale AI agency-wide by June 30,” said FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, M.D., M.P.H. “Today’s rollout of Elsa is ahead of schedule and under budget, thanks to the collaboration of our in-house experts across the centers.”

Built within a high-security GovCloud environment, Elsa offers a secure platform for FDA employees to access internal documents while ensuring all information remains within the agency. The models do not train on data submitted by regulated industry, safeguarding the sensitive research and data handled by FDA staff.

“Today marks the dawn of the AI era at the FDA with the release of Elsa, AI is no longer a distant promise but a dynamic force enhancing and optimizing the performance and potential of every employee,” said FDA Chief AI Officer Jeremy Walsh. “As we learn how employees are using the tool, our development team will be able to add capabilities and grow with the needs of employees and the agency.”

The agency is already using Elsa to accelerate clinical protocol reviews, shorten the time needed for scientific evaluations, and identify high-priority inspection targets.

Elsa is a large language model–powered AI tool designed to assist with reading, writing, and summarizing. It can summarize adverse events to support safety profile assessments, perform faster label comparisons, and generate code to help develop databases for nonclinical applications. These are just a few examples of how Elsa will be used across the enterprise to improve operational efficiency.

The introduction of Elsa is the initial step in the FDA’s overall AI journey. As the tool matures, the agency has plans to integrate more AI in different processes, such as data processing and generative-AI functions to further support the FDA’s mission.

Prioritizing efficiency and responsibility, the FDA launched Elsa ahead of schedule using an all-center approach. Leaders and technologists across the agency collaborated, demonstrating the FDA’s ability to transform its operations through AI. Reuters

Shares of Bharti Hexacom hit a new high of ₹1,933.45, as they rallied 4.5 per cent on the BSE in Tuesday’s intra-day trade in an otherwise weak market on a healthy business outlook.

The stock price of telecom services provider was quoting higher for the seventh straight trading day, surging 16 per cent during this period. It has bounced back 58 per cent from its three-month low of ₹1,225 touched on April 7, 2025.

At 10:22 AM; Bharti Hexacom was quoting 3 per cent higher at ₹1,908.35, as compared to 0.07 per cent rise in the BSE Sensex.

Bharti Hexacom’s Q4 results
In the January to March 2025 quarter, the company’s consolidated revenues came in at ₹47,876 crore and this was impacted by a decline in B2B segment, which was in line with what the company guided last quarter to focus on quality revenues. India revenues, excluding Indus, came in at ₹33,100 crore. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) margins came in at 50.7 per cent, this is an improvement of 1.4 per cent. The company said it prepaid another tranche of high cost Department of Telecommunications (DoT) spectrum debt of ₹5,985 crore.

Healthy business outlook
Analysts expect Bharti Hexacom’s Ebitda margin to further improve, driven by strong average revenue per user (ARPU) growth on account of tariff hikes, Bharti’s premiumisation strategy and cost optimisation via its ‘war on waste’ initiative.

Analysts at JM Financial Institutional Securities believe India’s wireless business tariff hikes are likely to be more frequent, going forward, given the consolidated industry structure and higher ARPU requirement for Jio also to justify significant 5G capex and given Jio’s potential IPO.

ARPU growth aided by likely moderation in capex will continue to drive Bharti Heaxacom’s FCF growth, enabling it to get to net cash by FY29; this will also aid in accretion in equity value. The brokerage firm sees Bharti Hexacom as a midcap pure-play on the structural wireless ARPU growth story.

Bharti Hexacom provides a pure-play exposure to Bharti Airtel’s fast-growing India wireless and home broadband segments. Given the relatively lower penetration of mobile and fixed broadband in Bharti Hexacom’s circles, its growth prospects are slightly better than Airtel’s.

Given lower teledensity and lower internet penetration in Hexacom circles (vs. pan-India), analysts believe Hexacom can potentially grow a few percentage points faster than Airtel on both subscribers and ARPU. Further, with significantly lower penetration of fixed broadband in Hexacom’s circles and the recent ramp-up of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) offerings, analysts believe Hexacom’s wired broadband business could also grow at a faster clip.

Motilal Oswal Financial Services believes Bharti Hexacom should command a premium to Airtel, given its slightly higher growth, better RoCEs, and lower capital misallocation concerns, and ascribe a DCF-based Jun’27E EV/EBITDA of 14.5x to Bharti Hexacom. However, currently, the stock is trading above brokerage firm’s target price of ₹1,900 per share. Business Standard

Cash-strapped telecom service provider Vodafone Idea Ltd. will be reporting its March quarter results on Friday, May 30.

Along with the quarterly results, Vodafone Idea’s board will also be evaluating proposals to raise funds through various methods.

“To consider and evaluate any and all proposals for raising of funds in one or more tranches, either by way of a rights issue or a Further Public Offer (FPO) or a private placement, including a preferential issue or a QIP, through any other permissible mode and / or combination thereof as may be considered appropriate,” Vodafone Idea said in its exchange filing.

As of date, Vodafone Idea has AGR dues to the tune of ₹83,400 crore, along with ₹1.19 lakh crore in Spectrum dues.

The company had recently warned that without further government support, it will not be able to operate beyond financial year 2026 and head into the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

The government is currently the largest shareholder in Vodafone Idea, having converted a part of Vodafone Idea’s dues to equity, thereby taking its stake in the struggling telecom company to 48.99%.

Vodafone Idea has close to 60 lakh retail shareholders, or those with authorised share capital of up to ₹2 lakh.

Shares of Vodafone Idea have opened little changed on Wednesday at ₹6.96. The stock is at least 40% below its FPO price of ₹11, while it has declined over 65% from its 2024-peak of ₹19.18. CNBCTV18

With a 97 per cent fall in the price of data over the past 11 years, India is set to become the data capital of the world in the next five years, Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said. India is already the second-largest mobile market globally, with 1.2 billion users and 974 million internet users, of whom 940 million are broadband users, he said.

With 1 GB of data now costing ₹9 on average—down from ₹287 in 2014—the cost of communication has fallen by 97 per cent, Scindia said. India’s per GB data cost is only one-fifth of the global average, he added.

India is also among the only five countries in the world to develop an indigenous 4G telecom stack. BSNL has installed close to 94,000 4G telecom towers.

Scindia said he is committed to transforming India Post from a cost centre to a profit centre within the next five years, noting that it has the largest distribution network in the world with 1.64 lakh points of presence.

“There is no reason why the post office can’t become a small mall. We are empowering every Grameen Dak Sevak with a handheld electronic payment device,” he said.

North East rising
Scindia, who also serves as Minister for the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region, said the eight North Eastern states have seen a decadal compounded annual growth rate of 12–13 per cent, and are on course to becoming the economic powerhouse of the country.

He said the recent North East Summit attracted ₹4.3 trillion worth of investment for the region.

Highlighting infrastructure development, the Minister said the number of airports in the region has increased to 17, from 9 earlier. Weekly air traffic movements have more than doubled—from 980 a decade ago to about 2,200 now.

The region is home to 38 per cent of India’s bamboo and 22 per cent of its rubber, and holds the greatest potential for the cultivation of Agarwood, used extensively in the perfume industry. “Around ₹1,000 crore of investment has been received for Agarwood cultivation in the North East,” Scindia said.

He added that nine infrastructure projects worth ₹81,000 crore are currently under execution. The Centre is committed to developing Agartala and Guwahati as connectivity hubs for South East Asia, he said.

“Up to $122 billion of trade currently conducted with ASEAN nations must be routed through the North East,” the minister said.

He also noted that 6,000 km of highways and 2,000 km of railways have been built in the region over the past decade. Business Standard

The telecom regulator is in favour of bringing the telecommunication, technology and broadcasting ministries under one umbrella body for ease of work.

Other countries have also made similar moves of convergence. It can help to resolve some of the overlaps in these sectors. This includes overlaps between telecom service providers and app-based providers, as well as the regulatory responsibility for OTT channels, among other issues.

Earlier in March, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology in its eleventh report had asked the government to consider bringing the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) under one umbrella for better coordination for issues emerging due to convergence of technologies.

Single policies
Already industry players like the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) have voiced support for the idea stating that such a move will lead to a focused handling of issues, and formulation of single policies that are equally applicable to all concerned ministries.

Aside from the Ministry convergence, the Standing Committee report also suggested a Media Council that would bring all forms of media like print, broadcast, digital, etc. under one umbrella for better coordination and implementation of laws.

However, broadcasting industry seem to have reservation against a converged policy framework. “With a converged regulator for ICT and broadcasting, there is always the risk of “false equivalence” being drawn between the two sectors… Telecommunication principles should never be applied when issues related to content are being determined,” said an executive of a broadcast company.

In a 2023 paper, TRAI had said that disparate policy structures for telecom and broadcasting cause governance challenges like multiple licence/permission authorities for the same converged service, lack of regulatory clarity on the outcomes of converged technologies (e.g., OTT), and demarcated administration of the converged digital services. The Hindu BusinessLine

Bell Canada has announced it will open six artificial intelligence data centres in B.C. as part of a plan to create the largest AI compute project in Canada.

The Montreal-based telecom company, which has in recent years touted its intent to become more tech-focused, said the facilities will provide around 500 megawatts of hydroelectric-powered AI compute capacity.

AI compute refers to the technology that enables artificial intelligence systems to perform tasks, such as processing data and training machine-learning models.

The project, called Bell AI Fabric, will help support Canadian businesses and governments’ AI needs, ranging from strategy and applications development to infrastructure deployment, the company said.

Bell AI Fabric’s first seven-megawatt data centre is slated to open next month in Kamloops, in partnership with American AI inference provider Groq.

The company said Groq’s technology is designed to accelerate AI inference tasks, particularly for large language models — algorithms that use massive data sets to recognize, translate, predict or generate text and other content.

“Groq’s advanced LPU technology, combined with Bell’s extensive fibre infrastructure, is setting a new standard in AI inference,” Groq founder and CEO Jonathan Ross said in a press release.

“We’re excited to bring these capabilities to Canada, significantly enhancing performance and affordability for AI-driven applications.”

A second facility is planned to open in Merritt, B.C., by the end of this year.

Bell said an additional 26-megawatt data centre, being built in partnership with Thompson Rivers University, will open by the end of 2026, followed by another in 2027.

Two more AI data centres are in advanced planning stages, which will be designed for high-density AI workloads, with a total capacity of more than 400 megawatts. The company said future facilities planned across the country will take advantage of Bell’s real estate assets to add further capacity.

“Bell’s AI Fabric will ensure that Canadian businesses, researchers, and public institutions can access high-performance, sovereign and environmentally responsible AI computing services,” Bell president and CEO Mirko Bibic said in a press release.

“Through this investment, Bell is immediately bolstering Canada’s sovereign AI compute capacity, while laying the groundwork to continue growing our AI economy.”

Earlier this month, Bell launched a new tech services brand called Ateko, which unifies recently acquired tech companies FX Innovation, HGC Technologies and CloudKettle under a single umbrella.

The company said Ateko will help businesses streamline operations, cut costs and boost productivity using AI, and serves as a cornerstone of Bell’s ambition to build a $1-billion tech services business. BNN Bloomberg

The High End Router market posted its first positive year-over-year (Y/Y) growth rate, officially ending the market contraction phase that began in 3Q 2023, which was caused by excess customer inventory of systems and deteriorating macroeconomic conditions. We estimate that the High End Router market grew 10% Y/Y in the quarter, with growth across all segments, particularly in service provider Core and Edge Routers. Additionally, every major region contributed to the strong revenue increase this quarter.

Four vendors held more than 10% of the High End Router market share in 1Q 2025: Huawei, Cisco, Nokia, and Juniper. Among these suppliers, Huawei outperformed the market, growing revenues 23% Y/Y, thereby gaining 3 percentage points of share. Juniper and Nokia also performed well, with revenue growth of 16% and 14%, respectively. Among the top four vendors, only Cisco posted router revenue in 1Q 2025 that was below its revenue a year earlier. However, Cisco did grow its Core Router revenue both Y/Y and quarter-over-quarter (Q/Q), driven by the success of selling its routed optical networking (RON) solution with 400 Gbps ZR/ZR+ Optics.

The first quarter of the year came in stronger than we anticipated it would just three months ago. As a result, we raised our 2025 market outlook. However, market uncertainty remains elevated due to U.S. government initiatives that may increase costs and slow economic growth. Dell’Oro