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• Leading telcos are already experimenting with quantum technology
• Efforts are mostly put into trialling quantum communication
• There is also a significant focus on building defences against future quantum-based threats

LONDON – 10 July 2025 – The quantum era is near – and leading telcos are already eyeing the various opportunities this new technology will create. This is the main finding from ‘Q-Beat’, a new tracker of quantum technology deployments across telcos, launched by leading research and consulting company STL Partners.  

The first edition of the tracker has covered 75 projects and announcements related to quantum technology by 29 telcos worldwide. “The most advanced telcos have already started investing talent, energy and money into quantum technology, which promises to open up new opportunities in the not-too-distant future,” comments Marina Koytcheva, research director at STL Partners.

The majority of the work – 80% of the recorded projects – is about deploying quantum technology to optimise operations or build new revenue streams in the future. The most common focus is exploring quantum communication and building small-scale trial networks, allowing quantum-secure transmission of data. For now, effort is mostly put into demonstrating quantum key distribution (QKD) via fibre optic networks. But some telcos experiment with quantum communication on mobile networks too. A few early clients from the financial sector are already on board, but the proposition will likely be of interest to many other industry sectors in the coming years.

In addition, some innovative telcos experiment with early-day quantum computers to optimise elements of their networks – be it cells, towers or satellites – to get the most from infrastructure investment and deliver the best possible service.

“Unfortunately, utilising quantum technology is on the roadmap not only of innovative businesses, but also of bad actors. Therefore, it is no surprise that a growing number of telcos put efforts into defence against future quantum threats, especially in the area of cybersecurity,” explains Koytcheva. STL Partners noted such efforts in 44% of the recorded quantum projects, with the majority directed at post-quantum cryptography (PQC). Some telcos are focusing on securing their own networks and operations, while others that see cybersecurity as an important element of their business are looking to build and offer post-quantum security solutions to their enterprise customers and even consumers.

Quantum tech ambitions are demonstrated by telcos all over the world, but operators in South Korea appear to be particularly active, with SK Telecom claiming the front position at present. However, there is also a flurry of announcements coming from the rest of Asia (especially Singapore, Japan and China), from major European telcos such as Deutsche Telekom, KPN, Orange, Telefónica, Telecom Italia and, most recently, Turkcell, as well as from North American giants AT&T and Verizon, among others. On the partner side, Toshiba’s name features most often in the first edition of the STL Partners’ Q-Beat tracker, but players such as Adtran, ID Quantique and Thales are also prominent.

“Having tasted success and praise for their fast deployment of generative AI, especially over the last year, telcos seem eager to become leaders in the utilisation of quantum technology, which suits their business well – both in terms of opportunities for the future and defence against the threats this technology will create,” concludes Koytcheva.

Global telco activity with quantum technology, split by type and phase

Learn more about STL Partners’ Q-Beat Telco deployment tracker here.

For media enquiries, click here to get in touch with our team. 

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• Half of GenAI projects in telcos are about building new products 
• AI solutions for enterprises dominate the agenda, but consumer services are on the rise 
• The number of applications of GenAI in network management is also growing 

LONDON – 11 June 2025 – Telecom operators’ enthusiasm for deploying generative AI (GenAI) in their operations is showing no signs of cooling down, according to a new report by telecom and technology advisory company STL Partners. The latest quarterly update of its ‘Telco generative AI adoption tracker’ shows that by May, the number of GenAI projects had increased by 41% from the previous three-month update by February 2025 and tenfold year on year. 

“Telcos remain determined to benefit from the development of GenAI”, notes Marina Koytcheva, research director at STL Partners. “They are very keen on building new products based on GenAI, to grow their revenues beyond the mature connectivity business.” 

In the May edition of STL Partners’ tracker, 50% of all GenAI projects in telcos involve product creation. 

The majority of the productisation efforts are focused on enterprise clients, as telcos rush to enable business customers to deploy GenAI applications in their operations. However, Koytcheva states that in recent months, “we notice operators’ desire to ride the wave of consumer appetite for GenAI as well”. Some examples include offering premium GenAI tools such as Perplexity Pro for free to broadband and mobile connectivity subscribers. In addition, there is a proliferation of examples in smart home, cybersecurity, well-being and other areas where telcos demonstrate true innovation in bringing novel services to the market. 

Global implementations of GenAI in telcos, split by type 

Another recent trend is telcos’ interest in the opportunity to offer AI infrastructure as a service to enterprises. Unmet local market needs and government desire for AI sovereignty drive operators’ ambitions to build AI factories. However, in a recently published note, STL Partners warns that this avenue is not suitable for all telcos: those that are considering making substantial investments need to ensure that building such infrastructure is not in pursuit of short-term opportunities but fits into their long-term strategy.

Another finding from the latest quarterly tracker is the growing rate of GenAI deployments in telco networks. Network management operations, where earlier types of AI have been used for years, have been slow to adopt the generative flavour of the technology. However, in the three months to May 2025, one in six telco GenAI implementations was in network management and optimisation. This reflects a growing supply of network management solutions with GenAI elements from key vendors, such as Nokia and Amdocs.

GenAI deployments are spreading geographically – and emerging markets are no exception from the trend, with new project announcements coming from Asia and Latin America in the examined period.

“Telcos are pressed to move quickly with GenAI not just by the relentless speed at which the technology is evolving, but also by the realisation that their competitors are adopting it rapidly”, concludes Koytcheva.

Learn more about STL Partners’ Telco generative AI adoption tracker here.

For media enquiries, click here to get in touch with our team. 

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• Private network market set to reach USD21bn by 2030, growing at 61% CAGR from 2024
• Growth driven by more enterprises adopting networks and spending on advanced use cases
• Sectors such as manufacturing, mining and transport are leading adoption due to complex needs
• Regions with slower uptake today are expected to see the fastest growth in coming years
• Computer vision to overtake push-to-x as the top use case by the end of the decade

LONDON – 28 May 2025 – At an estimated value of USD1bn in 2024, the private network market hasn’t lived up to early expectations. However, strong growth in deployments, particularly in the manufacturing sector, and increased spending on applications running over the networks will expand the market from USD1bn in 2024 to USD21bn by 2030, finds STL Partners. 

In its updated forecast, the research company suggests that the total addressable market for private networks will rise at a CAGR of 61% in the period. 

STL Partners envisions that the biggest driver for growth will be the number of private network deployments. While penetration is currently low, it is expected to increase significantly over the forecast period. 

The second driving force behind the growth of the private network market will be an increase in the average application spending per deployment. According to the research company, evolving use cases will drive this spending and will create the real value of the private network for the enterprise sector. 

STL Partners segments application spending into seven use case groupings (as shown in figure below). Its findings suggest that push-to-x was the leader in 2024, but in 2030, applications featuring computer vision capabilities are set to drive most of the spending. 

Private network application revenue breakdown by use case group, 2030

“Over time, enterprises will be getting more and more value from their private network investments, as they use them to enable more use cases that benefit their operations. It is the use cases that run on the private network that drive value for enterprises and create the business impact – and demonstrating this is key to triggering investment,” claims Rosalind Craven, principal analyst and co-author of the forecast. 

Discover more insights from the forecast here. 

For media enquiries, click here to get in touch with our team. 

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• The total addressable market for AI solutions in telco networks and OSS to grow to nearly USD18bn globally by 2030, at a CAGR of 8% per year between 2024–2030 

• The rise will come from increased availability of vendor-supplied AI solutions and platforms as well as continued demand for these solutions in the telco network and OSS 

• Solutions for resource management will be the most in demand 

LONDON – 21 May 2025 – The total addressable market for AI solutions in the mobile network and OSS will grow from USD11.2 billion in 2024 to USD17.6 billion by 2030, according to the latest forecast from STL Partners. 

This rise represents a CAGR of 8% per year over the period and is mainly driven by an increased number of available vendor solutions and platforms, as demand for AI solutions to ease the running of telco networks and OSS will remain strong during the forecast period. 

The figure includes the do-it-yourself (DIY) part of the market – i.e., the value which telcos will put in themselves to internally develop the AI solutions which they need. 

“Many telcos put in efforts to develop AI solutions that fit their needs, because they feel that they can’t find what suits them off-the-shelf – but vendors are looking at plugging that gap as time goes by”, comments Emma Buckland, Principal Analyst and author of the report. 

Total addressable market for AI solutions in the mobile network and OSS 
(vendor-supplied + DIY) 

According to the forecast, several use case families will attract most of the spending in the period, but the most value is where telcos spend most of their capex and opex currently – resource management, which is set to represent more than 40% of the overall market value in 2030. It includes use cases such as power management, RAN management and domain orchestration, suggests STL Partners.

“The market for AI solutions for improving the energy efficiency and consumption of network elements is already well-developed and we expect it to mature further, alongside applications that adjust network settings to closely align with traffic in an increasingly proactive manner”, says Buckland.

Find out more insights from the report by downloading a summary here.

For media enquiries, click here to get in touch with our team.

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• Most virtualised RAN deployments presently are of single-vendor vRAN, with only limited multi-vendor openness
• But the telcos involved are still aiming to realise some of the benefits of pure-play open RAN
• In particular, portability across multiple containers-as-a-service (CaaS) layers is emerging as a strong unique selling point (USP)

LONDON – 12 May 2025 – Most large-scale deployments of cloud-native RAN at Tier 1 telcos are currently based on single-vendor virtualised RAN (vRAN): all or most parts of the stack supplied by a single vendor, with more or less limited use of open RAN-compliant interfaces between them. But operators are deploying vRAN in innovative ways that preserve many open RAN benefits.

This is the key takeaway from STL Partners’ latest update to its Telco cloud deployment tracker, which reviews deployments of virtualised network functions (VNFs) and infrastructure in live networks during 2024 and Q1 2025.

“Tier 1 advocates of open, disaggregated networking are implementing vRAN in ways that at least capture some of the benefits of open RAN architecture,” claims David Martin, senior analyst and author of the study.

The report also takes a deep dive into the development and deployment of vRAN and open RAN platforms that can be ported across multiple CaaS layers. Martin argues that the cloud-based character of open RAN was relatively overlooked, while all the attention was placed on integration of the CU/DU and radios from multiple vendors, and on the performance challenges with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware.

Now, however, most vRAN and open RAN vendors can demonstrate interoperability of their platforms across multiple virtualisation layers; while “lack of interoperability across clouds may prove a long-term disadvantage for Ericsson”, Martin claims.

Platforms by vRAN vendors vary considerably in respect of the multi-vendor openness of different parts of their stack – and the report discusses in detail the ways in which leading telcos’ deployments seek to utilise and extend those platforms’ open features for greater flexibility, multi-vendor openness and interoperability.

Open RAN readiness of vendor platforms as currently deployed

“There is now a growing number of proof points that it is possible to run RAN workloads at scale on the public cloud”, Martin concludes.

Find out more insights from the report by downloading a summary here.

For media enquiries, get in touch with our team by clicking here. 

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• Most telcos are recruiting skills such as AI to operate more like a techco 
• However, telcos are not recruiting in sufficient quantity to transform the ways in which they can create value 
• They remain more than six years behind tech companies in building the future-proofing skills that enable innovation and agility, e.g., software   
• Telcos’ lower penetration of software skills, in particular, limits their ability to operate and innovate like a techco 

Telecom service providers are growing AI skills, but the significantly slower pace with which they are doing so compared to tech companies risks them being at a disadvantage when it comes to generating growth from this technology, according to the latest research from STL Partners. 

In its latest edition of the ‘Future skills tracker’, the research house compares the preparedness of nearly 20 telcos and 10 techcos globally in embracing new types of skill sets in response to the rapidly evolving market conditions. These skill sets include software, network, cloud, data analytics, AI, cybersecurity, automation, user experience and innovation. 

The company finds that 3.7% of employees that joined tech companies in the last year filled AI roles versus 1.1% in telcos. After software, AI roles were most recruited by tech companies last year – but they were only fifth in order priority at telcos. 

STL Partners also discovers that telcos remain more than six years behind tech companies in acquiring the skill sets that would prepare them for the future. 

“Tech companies are good at reconfiguring their human resources to support the creation of customer value with new technologies, while telcos cautiously test operational benefits for themselves first. This can disadvantage telcos on time to market, leaving them to play catch-up in valuable emerging opportunity areas”, comments Nicola Warren, senior analyst and author of the report.   

Tracker findings suggests that there are some telcos that are bucking this trend, making good progress in overall future skills acquisition – even though they are not equally progressed across all skill categories. 

Swisscom, Singtel and Telstra are prime examples, with their overall future skills penetrations exceeding 20 percent. Within new recruits, they have maintained a future skills share of around 27 percent. 

Operators including Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile US, Telenor and Telefónica have been found to have below-average penetration of future skills. Furthermore, their level of acquisition of such skill sets as a share of total new roles has not changed year on year, which suggests they need to further accelerate their resourcing efforts in these areas to make a difference. 

The report also highlights the importance for telcos to focus on expanding software roles more than any other types to be more like tech companies because software is the main driver of customer value for techcos. While STL Partners’ recent research shows software roles now assume the greatest share of telco headcount (4.8%) of the roles measured, they do not dominate in the same way as they do at tech companies (19.2%). This area represents the biggest gap between telco and techco resourcing, and hence, value-creating capability. 

“Telcos have been slow to capitalise on the digital opportunities of the past, waiting too long for these opportunities to prove themselves before building relevant skills. Tech companies, on the other hand, invest in skills early – ensuring their readiness to capture value when it presents,” Warren argues. 

Find out more insights from the report by downloading a summary here. 

For media enquiries, get in touch with our team by clicking here. 

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• Telcos can benefit greatly from the potential to carry and process distributed AI workloads
• However, they need to play smart and invest carefully
• STL Partners suggests specific recommendations depending on telcos’ strategic approaches

LONDON – – 10 April 2025 – Telcos have a huge potential opportunity to carry and process distributed AI workloads, but they need to be strategic in how they prioritise their network investments because it is impossible to predict how these workloads will spread out across the network.

This is the key takeaway from STL Partners’ latest report, ‘Networks for AI: Segmenting the growth’, which outlines recommendations for operators that seek to capture new opportunities unlocked by the rapid development in AI.

“AI is a monster of an opportunity – but it will take human intelligence and judgement if telcos are to capture it and not be consumed by it,” claims David Martin, senior analyst and author of the study.

The report takes a deep dive into three broad strategic approaches that telcos can take to capturing the AI networking opportunity: AI connectivity and infrastructure provider (also known as the ‘infraco’ play); AI enabler and service provider (‘servco’); and AI company (‘techco’).

For each of these strategies, the risk and the potential reward profile for the same types of investment are “radically divergent”, because “there is no magic silver bullet that will pay off for all types of telcos”, Martin explains.

He further suggests that telcos’ investments in AI inferencing capabilities at the edge are challenging from a skills and technology perspective, and are also unlikely to generate significant short- to medium-term return on investment – so any telcos wanting to splash out on GPUs at the RAN (the AI-and-RAN concept of the AI-RAN Alliance) should carefully qualify the business case for such a move first.

Investments in AI infrastructure, services and technologies by different types of telcocost of a one-month delay of an indicative data centre project

“Telcos should pursue a balanced investment strategy. They should not ‘put all of their eggs in one basket’ by overemphasising any one particular strategy or investment that may prove short-lived”, Martin concludes.

Find out more insights from the report by downloading a summary here.

For media enquiries, click here to get in touch with our team.

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• Edge computing total addressable market to grow by CAGR of 32% over the next six years, reaching USD424bn in 2030
• The largest opportunity will come from content delivery, web and app optimisation, and computer vision for asset monitoring
• Media and entertainment, and manufacturing are expected to have the biggest demand for edge-enabled use cases

LONDON – 4 April 2025 – STL Partners forecasts that the total addressable market for edge computing will reach USD424 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32% projected over the next six years.

In the fourth edition of its market forecast examining the edge computing market landscape, the research company has revised its outlook for 2030 down by 8% from its last projection due to reduced expectations for the speed of adoption of cloud gaming. The analyst house’s latest findings show that the use cases with the largest revenue opportunity at the end of the decade will be content delivery, web and app optimisation, as well as computer vision for asset monitoring.

LONDON – 29 January 2025 – The addressable edge AI market is set for significant growth by the end of the decade, rising from USD54bn in revenue in 2024 to USD157bn by 2030 globally, STL Partners prognoses in its latest research. 

In its first-ever Edge AI market forecast, the analyst powerhouse suggests that the market will be rising by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19% during the period, demonstrating the huge demand for solutions that support future developments of AI applications. 

Edge AI refers to the deployment of AI models at the edge of the network. STL Partners forecasts the value of edge AI across the entire value chain which it splits into six main components: device, connectivity, platform, application, integration and support, and edge infrastructure. The forecast does not include on-device edge AI and focuses on AI workloads processed on edge infrastructure that is off the device.  

The research and consulting firm believes that the proportion of revenue directly attributable to AI will grow from 69% in 2024 to 72% in 2030. This is because applications are set to become increasingly infused with AI, making the technology integral to the delivery of use cases. The remaining 28% of revenue in 2030 is set to come from components of the value chain that indirectly enable AI applications. 

“The substantial value generated directly by AI or as a direct enabling force indicates that players which are specialising in accommodating AI applications at the edge stand to gain significant value. Indicative of this influence is the growing investment across enterprises into AI accelerators to facilitate the deployment of edge AI applications”, comments George Glanville, research analyst at STL Partners and author of the forecast. According to him, convincing enterprises to make this investment into specialised on-premises hardware has required greater collaboration between independent software vendors (ISVs) and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to demonstrate the ROI of edge AI solutions. 

Global revenue from edge computing

“On-premises edge stands as the dominant platform to support AI at the edge and drives much of the early revenue in the market – particularly in facilitating computer vision applications. However, by 2028, use cases that require a more distributed, wide-area, edge infrastructure footprint will begin to mature”, claims George Glanville, edge analyst and co-author of the forecast update. He adds that by this point, the market will be mainly fuelled by edge content delivery network (CDN), cloud gaming and connected car driver assistance.

Across the forecast period, media and entertainment, and manufacturing are expected to be the verticals with the biggest demand for edge-enabled use cases, representing a share of 58% by 2030. The media and entertainment sector alone is prognosed to account for 41% of the total addressable revenue by then, primarily propelled by cloud gaming and content delivery use cases which leverage the edge to enhance applications and deliver a premium customer experience.

Manufacturing, on the other hand, is an early adopter industry of edge computing solutions for a wide array of reasons, including enhanced automation, security and safety capabilities as well as new revenue generation possibilities. Computer vision, automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and robotic control of industrial machinery contribute to the size of the opportunity in this vertical.

North America, East Asia and Pacific, and Europe and Central Asia will remain the largest regional markets for edge computing throughout the forecast period. However, their combined share of the global edge computing addressable market will decline from 93% in 2024 to 87% in 2030, as regions in the rest of the world experience higher growth.

Find out more insights from the forecast here.

For media enquiries, click here to get in touch with our team.

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• Data centre construction projects can cost an extra USD14.2mn per month if delayed
• Internal rate of return (IRR) can suffer an excess of 25% decline due to holdups
• The root cause lies in fragmented, manual reporting
• Effective reporting makes the difference between hitting targets and wiping out returns, states consultant Jonas Topp-Mugglestone

LONDON – 27 March 2025 – Delays in data centre construction can cost developers as much as USD14.2 million per month, according to the latest findings from research and consulting company STL Partners. This calculation is based on a typical 60 MW data centre in the US.

In its new report, ‘Preventing multimillion dollar data centre losses through reporting’, the company discovers that such delays are not only hitting the bottom line, but they can also slash projected internal rate of return (IRR), placing major pressure on investor confidence and future funding. In an indicative scenario for a 60 MW data centre construction project, the IRR is 17.1% if delivered on time, falling to 15.5% in the case of a one-month delay and to 12.6% if delayed by three months.

The true cost of a one-month delay of an indicative data centre project

According to STL Partners, the main cause for delays is a lag between issues arising and being detected which is driven by fragmented, manual reporting.

Therefore, the report highlights structured, real-time reporting as key to alleviating such challenges, as it is “the most scalable, cost-effective tool for avoiding these losses”.

Furthermore, it suggests that effective reporting ensures early risk detection, faster issue escalation and real-time decision-making, which can bridge the gap between disruption and response.

“Data centre projects don’t simply fail because problems arise – they fail because teams see these issues too late. With delays costing data centre developers more than USD14 million a month, reporting isn’t just operational hygiene – it’s the difference between hitting targets and wiping out returns,” claims Jonas Topp-Mugglestone, consultant at STL Partners and author of the report.

Furthermore, frameworks that are standardised and automated give project managers the visibility and the control they need, preventing minor issues from snowballing into multimillion-dollar holdups.

“Delay isn’t just a construction risk – it’s a financial one. For investors, even a few weeks can destroy IRR and complicate funding models. Better reporting protects both delivery timelines and investor confidence,” adds Topp-Mugglestone.

Find out more insights from the report here.

For media enquiries, click here to get in touch with our team.

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• More than half of SMBs are aware of having been victims of cybercrime
• 38% believe they have urgent cybersecurity gaps to address
• 64% intend to increase their spending on cybersecurity in 2025

LONDON – 13 February 2025 – Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) face multiple challenges with securing their operations against cyberattacks that are becoming more sophisticated and vicious, according to a report by telecom and technology advisory company STL Partners. The research is based on a recent survey of 826 IT decision-makers in SMBs, conducted across seven advanced markets in Western Europe, North America and Australia.

“AI allows cybercriminals to orchestrate sophisticated, targeted attacks with little effort while SMBs, the backbone of the economy, have limited internal resources to counter them”, notes Marina Koytcheva, research director at STL Partners.

The research shows that 48% of small and medium companies’ cybersecurity is managed by a non-expert.

“This is not to say that cybersecurity is regarded as unimportant by business owners and managers; quite the contrary: it is a priority in more than 90% of these companies”, explains Nicola Warren, senior analyst at STL Partners. This shouldn’t be a surprise: 58% of SMBs are aware that they have been a victim of cybercrime, leading to loss of time, money and data. In addition, almost two in three SMBs serve clients that require certain cybersecurity assurances.

But cybersecurity comes at a cost – and for many small and medium companies, it makes up a very significant proportion of their spending on technology products, services and solutions: 39% on average. However, cost is not the only challenge for SMBs that want to be cybersecure. Employees’ lack of cybersecurity awareness and appreciation of the risks, as well as careless use of personal and company devices are among the biggest cybersecurity worries that prey on the minds of IT and business managers.

All this adds up to an expectation among 64% of SMBs that their spending on cybersecurity will increase in 2025, with 24% projecting the increase to be in excess of 10 percent.

Source: STL Partners

“One of the main learnings from our survey is that SMBs should not be treated as a homogenous group: their knowledge of cybersecurity varies greatly, as does their preference for the suppliers they use, the packages they opt for, their desired level of external management of cybersecurity and their perceived needs for bespoke products,” continues Warren. When it comes to buying cybersecurity, quality of service and pricing are the top selection criteria for SMBs, reflecting their cost consciousness and time constraints as well as lack of expertise. Solution providers will also need to help SMBs with securing the human element: employee knowledge, awareness and preparedness to recognise malicious attacks.

“While SMBs are not an easy customer segment to serve, the growing market for cybersecurity provides space for solution providers of all types to build share: cyber specialists, IT companies, telcos. Those that manage to address the needs of the various subsegments of SMBs can enjoy loyalty and opportunity to cross-sell other services such as connectivity”, concludes Koytcheva.

Discover more insights from the survey by downloading a summary here.

For media enquiries, click here to get in touch with our team.

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by supporting telcos and their partners innovate, grow, and stay ahead of the competition. We are now expanding into cybersecurity research to help telcos navigate emerging threats and opportunities.

• Global addressable edge AI market is set to grow by a CAGR of 19% in the next six years, reaching USD157bn in revenue by 2030 
• Manufacturing stands out as the vertical that will most strongly adopt edge AI use cases, followed by the retail and the transport sectors 
• Computer vision will dominate, capturing more than half of the revenue by the decade-end 
• On-premises edge is expected to be the preferred deployment location for any type of use cases, winning enterprises with assurances around security and low latency 

LONDON – 29 January 2025 – The addressable edge AI market is set for significant growth by the end of the decade, rising from USD54bn in revenue in 2024 to USD157bn by 2030 globally, STL Partners prognoses in its latest research. 

In its first-ever Edge AI market forecast, the analyst powerhouse suggests that the market will be rising by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19% during the period, demonstrating the huge demand for solutions that support future developments of AI applications. 

Edge AI refers to the deployment of AI models at the edge of the network. STL Partners forecasts the value of edge AI across the entire value chain which it splits into six main components: device, connectivity, platform, application, integration and support, and edge infrastructure. The forecast does not include on-device edge AI and focuses on AI workloads processed on edge infrastructure that is off the device.  

The research and consulting firm believes that the proportion of revenue directly attributable to AI will grow from 69% in 2024 to 72% in 2030. This is because applications are set to become increasingly infused with AI, making the technology integral to the delivery of use cases. The remaining 28% of revenue in 2030 is set to come from components of the value chain that indirectly enable AI applications. 

“The substantial value generated directly by AI or as a direct enabling force indicates that players which are specialising in accommodating AI applications at the edge stand to gain significant value. Indicative of this influence is the growing investment across enterprises into AI accelerators to facilitate the deployment of edge AI applications”, comments George Glanville, research analyst at STL Partners and author of the forecast. According to him, convincing enterprises to make this investment into specialised on-premises hardware has required greater collaboration between independent software vendors (ISVs) and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to demonstrate the ROI of edge AI solutions. 

Total edge AI addressable revenue (2023–2030) 

Manufacturing, retail and transport are expected to show the biggest demand for edge AI use cases, representing a combined revenue share of 77% by 2030. In fact, manufacturing alone is forecast to encompass more than 35% of the market during the period. This is driven by the sector’s strong – and early – adoption of computer vision use cases, such as asset monitoring and security. 

According to the research firm, the application of these use cases by the manufacturing sector provides a more immediate return on investment than in other verticals, and environments are comparatively easier to deploy in. Furthermore, these are the driving factors behind the company’s expectations for computer vision use cases to dominate the market, representing more than half of the edge AI addressable market by the decade-end. 

 “The overwhelming majority of computer vision use cases will be deployed at the on-premises edge as it provides a secure, low-latency environment for enterprises to perform AI inference on video data, which often contains sensitive information that cannot leave an enterprise’s premises for regulatory reasons”, the analyst explains. 

In addition, he argues, deploying on-premises avoids “the significant cost” of data backhaul that enterprises would otherwise contend with when deploying in more centralised environments. 

Another finding highlights East Asia & Pacific, Europe & Central Asia and North America as the regions with the largest opportunities for edge AI throughout the forecast period. Their collective share of the edge AI addressable market stood at 92% in 2024. This substantial figure is set to reduce by 2030, reaching 86%, as regions including South Asia, Latin America and the Middle East mature in their adoption of edge AI. 

The forecast also provides insights into the segment types of the value chain that are prognosed to capture the lion’s pie in revenue by 2030 and a break down a breakdown of top-performing value chain segments, among other valuable takeaways. 

You can discover more findings from the forecast by downloading an extract here. 

For media enquiries, click here to get in touch with our team.

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• A total of 55% of software developers don’t associate the term ‘network APIs’ with telco network capabilities 
• Despite this, the majority of the developer community is aware of industry-driven API initiatives, such as GSMA Open Gateway and CAMARA 
• Operators face a challenge to strike the fine balance between showcasing new capabilities and delivering familiar services to the developer community 
• More than half (54%) of developers see the value of network APIs in accessing network performance information, such as latency and jitter 
• Cloud platforms are leading the way in terms of means for developers to access APIs 

LONDON – 13 January 2025 – More than half (55%) of software developers do not associate the term ‘network application programming interfaces (APIs)’ with telecom network capabilities, but rather link these APIs with management of their wider IT networks. This is one of the main findings from the latest STL Partners survey, ‘Telecom network APIs: What do developers really want?’, which was conducted in November 2024 and examines the perceptions of more than 400 software application developers across key global markets. 

To help address the lack of familiarity with their potential, telcos need to strike “a fine balance” between demonstrating new capabilities and delivering services in a way that developers are already familiar with, according to STL Partners research director and author of the survey, Amy Cameron. 

“We believe operators should position their APIs as delivering similar functional capabilities to existing APIs – i.e., ability to manage network functions, control access to resources and exchange data across different networks – but across a new networking domain that has previously been unavailable to them”, the analyst adds. 

On the flip side, the survey shows that the developer community is increasingly aware of industry-driven telecom API initiatives, such as GSMA Open Gateway and CAMARA, but there is more that can be done to boost knowledge in this space.

Despite the need for education on telecom APIs, STL Partners has seen clear interest in the capabilities that telcos can offer to developers. When asked about the perceived value of different features of network APIs, accessing network performance information, such as latency and jitter, was the most popular choice, deemed attractive by more than half (54%) of developers.

Furthermore, the research has found that:

• Half of respondents from the developer community see understanding device status on the network as appealing
• 44% see value in specifying and guaranteeing network performance levels for a period of time.

Another notable finding suggests that developers get APIs predominantly through hyperscalers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and others (see graph below). This applies even to telecom APIs, with Microsoft claiming the top spot in terms of overall customer experience for developers.

Therefore, Cameron suggests, the telecom industry should ensure that developers can access APIs in the channels they are already familiar with – starting with cloud platforms, and then through systems integrators and on telcos’ own platforms.

“This approach should lower the barriers to adoption enough to expand telcos’ reach beyond developers focused on priority communication and into the wider enterprise productivity, IT and internet of things (IoT) developer market”, the author concludes. You can find out more insights from the survey by downloading an extract here.

For media enquiries, click here to get in touch with our team.

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• STL Partners expects growing appetite for network edge data centre deployments, with a projected 22% CAGR over the next four years 
• Telcos see the network edge as a pathway to improve return on their infrastructure investments 
• The market will be driven by accelerated 5G standalone deployments and the rise in governmental support 
• However, STL Partners does not expect AI to immediately speed up network edge rollouts 

LONDON – 6 December 2024 – STL Partners expects there will be more than 1800 network edge data centres by 2028, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22% over the four-year period. 

In its latest market forecast, the analyst powerhouse suggests that accelerated 5G standalone (SA) deployments and the growing role of governments around the world in driving network edge rollouts, act as key driving forces for the market growth. 

Telcos are adopting a pragmatic approach as they look to better monetise their existing infrastructure investments – and the network edge has provided a pathway to achieving this. This applies for mobile, fixed and converged operators. 

For the first time in its observations of the market, STL Partners has tracked companies that are winding down their network edge propositions, having already built capacity. This is the case for AT&T (which had deployed two sites) and Cox Communications (which had deployed 30 sites).

Despite this, the research house’s outlook for the next four years remains positive.

Furthermore, STL Partners does not believe that the ambition of the AI-RAN Alliance to deploy AI services for customers using the same infrastructure currently used for radio access network (RAN) workloads will significantly accelerate network edge capacity in the immediate future.

“When it comes to edge AI, the network edge is like the ‘ugly duckling’, with other forms of edge computing deployment at current providing more attractive solutions for enterprises. For example, on-premise edge is playing a critical role in providing a secure and sovereign environment for enterprises to perform AI inference. Meanwhile, regional edge data centres are benefiting from the surge in demand for environments that can support AI model training”, explains George Glanville research analyst and author of the forecast.

He argues that the commercial proposition of the network edge, at current, is less clear, given that most AI use cases today do not have highly stringent latency requirements, and enterprises need to pay a significant premium to deploy workloads in these environments (in contrast to the cloud).

“It is only when wide-area AI use cases with stringent latency demands emerge that the network edge will truly spread its wings and fly”, Glanville claims. This is the case for many connected car and smart city use cases.

Find out more insights from STL Partners’ forecast by downloading an extract here.

For media enquiries, click here to get in touch with our team.

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• Generative AI continues its momentum across telcos’ activities 
• STL Partners has recorded nearly 300 announcements of GenAI technology implementations by telcos 
• 47% of the activity is across telecom operators productising GenAI for their enterprise clients 
• Solution providers for the telco industry are rushing to support it, as developments of GenAI solutions specifically designed for telcos proliferate 

LONDON – 19 November 2024 – STL Partners has seen a significant increase in the adoption of generative AI (GenAI) by telecom operators worldwide between August and November 2024, marking the swift prevalence of the technology far and wide. 

In its latest Telco generative AI adoption tracker, the research and consulting firm has found that 69 telecom operators have made a total of 282 GenAI implementations by the start of November, up 40% from August 2024 and recording a staggering fivefold growth over the last six months. 

‘Telcos are quick on their feet when it comes to using GenAI in their operations and products, surprising some sceptics in the industry,’ notes Marina Koytcheva, research director at STL Partners. Insights from the tracker show that 51% of all announcements are in full deployment, while 8% are in trials and 41% are at a stage of exploration. 

Based on the proliferation of early-stage activity and the expanding number of telecom operators engaging with GenAI, the analyst powerhouse expects the rapid adoption of GenAI by telcos to continue as they find new ways to derive value from the technology for themselves and, importantly, for their customers. 

‘Work on GenAI propositions for enterprise clients continues at a pace’, comments Koytcheva, citing figures which show that 47% of the GenAI projects relate to offering services such as chatbots and even infrastructure to business customers who don’t have the time, skills or interest in cracking GenAI on their own. 

Two other trends that STL Partners notes are sustained interest by telcos in owning their large language models (LLMs) in-house and efforts towards creating multi-model platforms. ‘Both point towards the desire to avoid lock-in with a single AI giant such as OpenAI or Google,’ remarks Koytcheva. 

Another significant development over the last months is the explosion of GenAI solutions designed to help the telco industry adopt the technology: STL Partners has identified 50 such propositions already. Three quarters of those have been specifically developed for the telco industry, while the rest are optimised for telecom among other industries.  

‘Clearly, the industry has noticed telcos’ ambition to adopt GenAI quickly – and solution providers are now rushing to compete for telcos’ attention and partnership,’ the analyst adds. ‘The good news is that while the growth of GenAI adoption in the telecom industry is steep, these are still early days: we are yet to hear from hundreds more operators around the world about what they are doing with GenAI.’ 

Find out more insights from the tracker by downloading a summary here. 

For media enquiries, click here to get in touch with our team.

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• Network edge locations are increasingly seen by developers as the optimum location for AI inferencing 
• Two of the top three applications hosted at the network edge today leverage AI 
• 24% of respondents anticipate GPU to be prevalent in edge adoption by 2029 

AI is seen as a key driver for adoption at the edge – and inferencing is better suited to edge environments in comparison with model training, according to the latest survey conducted by STL Partners. 

LONDON – 11 November 2024 – Based on its annual survey of more than 100 experts in the edge computing sector, conducted in October 2024, the research and consulting firm has uncovered the current status of the network edge, and challenges and opportunities in this area. 

The network edge is increasingly seen by developers as the optimum location for AI inferencing because it has a latency, sovereignty and cost advantage over centralised cloud infrastructure. 

A total of 61% of respondents cite video analytics/computer vision as the top application type deployed at the network edge. Specific examples of such solutions include customer behaviour analysis, connected car driver assistance, and machine monitoring and control. 

‘Computer vision use cases often require less bespoke integration work than other use cases, reducing the time to implementation and helping to create a more attractive business case. The data volumes that high-quality video creates plus the need for real-time alerts or insights lead to a clear reason for deploying at the edge’, comments Tilly Gilbert, consulting director and Edge Practice lead at STL Partners. 

‘There is a real and growing appetite for infrastructure that supports AI solutions in a way that is performant, cost-effective and for some regions – sovereign. Network edge is increasingly seen as a choice to best satisfy these needs. Recent examples, including Deutsche Telekom’s deployment to support an autonomous vehicle solution for Volkswagen at the Port of Emden, Germany, are indicative of this trend’, adds Anna Boyle, senior consultant at STL Partners. 

Another finding from the survey suggests that executives are bullish about the potential of graphics processing units (GPUs) being deployed at the edge. 

‘Demand for AI and generative AI (GenAI) applications at the network edge have mobilised telecom operators to deploy GPUs and other specialised silicon at these sites. More than 40% of respondents said that non-CPU hardware will make up between 40% and 100% of edge hardware by 2029’, comments Boyle. 

Zooming into specific verticals, STL Partners’ survey has discovered that the industrial sector remains the top adopter of network edge computing in 2024, closely followed by the media and entertainment vertical (see figure below). 

Notably, this year the public sector and financial services have emerged as new adopters of network edge

You can find out more takeaways from the annual telco edge computing survey by downloading an extract here.

For media enquiries, click here to get in touch with our team.

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• Operators make progress towards their sustainability goals but there is a lot more to be done on this journey, finds STL Partners 
• Telcos should pay close attention to AI developments which already take a toll on tech companies’ environmental sustainability efforts 
• Telefónica keeps its crown across various key sustainability-related efforts 
• In its latest research, STL Partners emphasises on the importance of the human element of sustainable goals 

Drawing insights from more than 70 companies globally, STL Partners’ latest update to its ‘Sustainability scorecard’ offers a holistic overview of the maturity in sustainability reached by telcos and their peers, including vendors, infrastructure players and technology giants. 

LONDON – 16 October 2024 – Telcos need to work harder on their carbon reduction journey if they are to offset the negative impact of AI developments that already put a strain on tech companies’ environmental sustainability efforts, urges STL Partners in its latest research. 

This guidance comes as the research and consulting powerhouse has found in the latest update to its ‘Sustainability scorecard’ that AI is already having a “tangible effect” on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by some of the largest tech giants, including a 112% increase in the total scope 2 emissions of Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google between 2019 and 2023. 

At the same time, operators are quick to move towards implementing AI-as-a-service (AIaaS) which poses the question whether a similar impact will shake up telcos’ net-zero efforts. 

“Telcos are beginning to build generative AI into their own activities as well as their enterprise service portfolios, providing content summarisation or creation for enterprise sales and marketing teams, or even offering ‘GPU-as-a-service’ to enterprises. Those that are successful in embedding these heavy-duty AI tools into their own processes and enterprise services could face similar challenges to the hyperscalers with rising emissions”, cautions Amy Cameron, STL Partners research director and co-author of the sustainability scorecard. 

To mitigate this risk, she suggests that operators should “put processes in place to assess the energy consumption versus business benefit of generative AI deployments, use smaller language models where possible and integrate a carbon tax into the total cost of ownership when procuring any new infrastructure to support these services.” 

In another concerning insight, the company has discovered that only 49% of the examined telcos have publicised responsible AI frameworks compared to more than 85% of vendors and tech companies. Therefore, beyond mitigating AI’s impact on emissions, “operators must also establish frameworks ensuring they utilise AI in a responsible and ethical manner”, argues George Glanville, analyst at STL Partners and co-author of the scorecard. 

In addition to the environmental aspect, STL Partners’ scorecard update depicts the landscape in the market in terms of other elements that make a company sustainable – and offers insight into best practices in each area. 

Among its key findings is that Telefónica remains the most sustainable company in the telco realm, showing progress made in key criteria, such as board and employee incentives related to sustainability goals, issuance of green bonds, and enhanced inclusion, diversity and governance efforts. 

BT is breathing down Telefónica’s neck with highest scores measured in terms of board-level and employee incentives, enablement and collaboration, while Google ranks third with top performance in collaboration. 

Overview of top three scoring companies

Furthermore, STL Partners’ research suggests that while telcos and their peers are improving the gender diversity across their teams, there is still a long way to go. Top performers in this area are Netflix and Globe Telecom which are close to achieving gender parity both in senior management and across their total workforce.

You can find out more insights from the sustainability scorecard by downloading an extract here. For media enquiries, click here to get in touch with our team.

STL Partners is a leading research and consulting company that focuses on the telecom industry and adjacent markets by helping telcos and their partners innovate, grow and stay ahead of the competition.

• Generative AI implementations by telcos increased fourfold between May and August, according to STL Partners’ latest research
• The company has tracked more than 200 implementations of the technology worldwide, with actual launches significantly rising
• Telcos show increased focus on developments utilising multiple large language models and proprietary models

STL Partners’ latest quarterly update to the ‘Telco generative AI adoption tracker’ provides an overview of the current level of progress in GenAI implementations made by telcos, the key capabilities of the technology applicable to the sector, as well as a comprehensive list of the use cases with highest potential of bringing benefits for operators and their customers

LONDON – 28 AUGUST 2024 – Generative AI (GenAI) implementations by telecom network operators have almost quadrupled between May and August 2024, while telcos increasingly eye monetisation opportunities unleashed by the technology’s capabilities, according to the latest update to the ‘Telco generative AI adoption tracker’ compiled by STL Partners.

Based on publicly available data on trials and deployments announced in the three-month period, the research and consulting company has tracked a total of 201 records of GenAI implementations by telcos worldwide, up from 56 in May. “Telcos have shifted a gear up on the adoption of GenAI,” comments Kerina Naran, analyst at STL Partners, adding that operators that have unveiled actual implementations nearly doubled in the period to 54 on a global scale.

“This momentum underscores the sector’s commitment to harnessing the transformative power of GenAI, as telcos aim to optimise operations, enhance customer experiences and tap into new revenue streams,” explains the analyst who is a co-author of the tracker update.

Notably, STL Partners has discovered that telcos are swiftly moving beyond announcements to actual launches of GenAI use cases, with half of recorded implementations by August 2024 being of launches (up from 21% in May when announcements dominated).

According to the tracker’s latest update, implementations that can utilise multiple large language models (LLMs) are growing fast, as is the number of telcos working on their own LLMs.

Another highlight suggests that there is significant activity by telcos to seek monetisation opportunities from their GenAI-related efforts. “A staggering 45% of the implementations we’ve recorded seek to capture the rising interest of the enterprise sector in AI by offering AI-as-a-service,” notes Naran. “Larger enterprises may have figured out their AI strategies, but many small and medium businesses don’t even know where to start, and a number of telcos have spotted the opportunity to help them.”

STL Partners’ tracker update further outlines the dominant business areas where GenAI is being adopted by telcos, and explores why, to a large extent, the industry is still in its early days for the technology. Find out more by downloading the summary here.

STL Partners is a leading, global research and consulting firm that focuses on the telecoms and technology industries. We enable telcos, tech companies, and their partners to make the world run better. More information on our research and services is available at www.stlpartners.com