From Connectivity to Sovereign AI: Building Unified Telco Cloud Infrastructure

Announcing VMware Telco Cloud Platform 9

At MWC 2026, Broadcom unveiled the future of telco cloud infrastructure with the announcement of VMware Telco Cloud Platform 9.. This planned release focuses on key industry demands: sovereignty, automation, and AI. The announcement underscores Broadcom’s ongoing commitment to providing telco infrastructure that adapts to evolving operator needs, meeting both current compliance mandates and the requirements of AI-native networks.

More details are available in the press release:

Broadcom News and Stories: Broadcom Announces VMware Telco Cloud Platform 9 to Drive Greater Hardware Efficiency for Sovereign-Ready Telco Infrastructure

Conversations with telecommunications operators here at MWC are sounding noticeably different from previous years. The questions have shifted from “Should we modernize?” to “How do we move faster while managing what we already have?” That change in tone matters. It signals the industry is past the debate phase and into the execution mode. Broadcom is sharing insights with customers and partners at the show into the critical infrastructure capabilities that will define the industry’s next phase of transformation: sovereignty, automation, and AI.

Operators, vendors, and technology providers are converging to address the practical challenges of network transformation. Our key message, “Your trusted and reliable Telco Cloud: Sovereign. Automated. AI-native” reflects the demands of network infrastructure that is sovereign and secure as the industry moves toward intelligent, autonomous operations.

VMware Telco Cloud Platform: Sovereignty Meets AI-Ready Infrastructure

Paul Turner, Chief Product Officer of Broadcom’s VCF Division, spoke with MobileWorld Live about how telecom operators can become sovereign cloud providers with a unified platform managing legacy VNFs, cloud-native and AI workloads. The solution delivers AI-native capabilities while eliminating dependency on public cloud operators and ensuring data sovereignty across regulated markets.

“A transition to cloud-native networks promises to bring agility and efficiency benefits, but unlocking these benefits to the fullest extent requires operators to adopt horizontal network cloud platforms. Additionally, for AI to transform network operations and open up new revenue streams, operators need AI platforms that simplify the deployment of AI agents, enable efficient GPU management and ensure sovereignty. Broadcom is well placed to help operators with implementing these platforms.”

– Joseph Attwood, Senior Analyst, Analysys Mason

Telco Reinvention: From 5G Promises to AI-Driven Revenue

Evan Kirstel is joined by Odded Solomon and Madhup Gulati from Broadcom to explore the current state of telco reinvention and the path to meaningful monetization. They dive into the industry’s most pressing challenges, breaking down why 5G returns have lagged behind investments and how operators can shift from efficiency-focused strategies to revenue-generating models. The conversation covers critical topics including the 5G monetization gap, rising infrastructure costs, AI’s evolution from an operational tool to a revenue engine, and the fundamental transition from selling connectivity to selling “tokens”.

Review the blog here: From 5G Hangover to AI Opportunity: Broadcom’s Telco Strategy at MWC

Capturing new revenue with sovereign AI

Telecommunications operators are evolving from providers of simple connectivity to offering sovereign AI services. By leveraging distributed regional data centers, operators can capture new revenue streams while maintaining the control and compliance that AI workloads demand.

VMware Telco Cloud Platform is evolving to support both 4G/5G Core network functions and data-intensive AI workloads on a unified and open platform. This enables operators to deliver Sovereign AI through capabilities like Private AI-as-a-Service. Native tools including Model Store, Model Runtime, and Vector Databases allow operators to offer turnkey AI environments to enterprise customers while ensuring strict data isolation and regulatory compliance. This positions operators to monetize their infrastructure by providing secure, compliant AI capabilities that public cloud providers cannot match due to sovereignty requirements.

The unified and open platform approach that supports VNFs, CNFs, and AI workloads on common infrastructure reduces the complexity and cost of fragmented, vertical stack silos. This consistency enables operators to manage workloads at scale, support intelligent network management and optimization, and deliver AI-driven capabilities without requiring separate infrastructure investments.

Operational efficiency

Telecommunications operators face ongoing pressure to reduce both capital expenditures (CAPEX) and operational expenditures (OPEX). Infrastructure consolidation onto a single platform reduces CAPEX by eliminating the need for duplicate hardware stacks and specialized infrastructure for different workload types. The operational impact is equally significant.

Network function lifecycle management remains one of the most labor-intensive areas of telco operations. Despite years of API standardization efforts, multi-vendor environments continue to present fragmented workflows, rigid requirements, inconsistent upgrade paths, and manual steps that create both risk and delay. These manual processes directly increase OPEX through staffing requirements and the cost of errors during maintenance windows.

Declarative automation modernizes the network operations by shifting the focus to the desired end-state of the network. GitOps embodies this approach by treating the desired state of the network as version-controlled code. Rather than executing changes through a sequence of manual commands across multiple systems, operators define what they want the network to look like, and the platform handles reconciliation. This approach supports automated Day 0/1 deployment and Day 2 operations, including upgrades, scaling, and reconfiguration across CNF deployments.

The practical outcome is reduction in the complexities that currently make lifecycle management the hardest problem in telco operations. Engineering teams spend less time on repetitive configuration tasks and more time on work that requires their expertise. Deployment cycles that previously required weeks of coordination can be compressed significantly when automation enforces consistency and reduces the opportunity for configuration drift. These efficiency gains translate directly to lower operational costs and faster time to market for new services.

Sovereignty and compliance: Control as an operational requirement

Regulatory requirements have moved from a background consideration to a central infrastructure design constraint. The EU AI Act, NIS2, and related national frameworks establish specific obligations around data handling, supply chain security, incident reporting, and risk management. These are not optional, and they apply to the platforms operators run, not only to the services they offer.

VMware Telco Cloud Platform addresses these requirements through a security-by-design architecture that has been validated by independent third-party auditors. Broadcom has published Product Applicability Guides mapping platform capabilities to both the NIS2 regulatory framework and the NIST 800-53 control families. This documentation gives operators a concrete starting point for compliance assessments rather than requiring them to build the mapping from scratch.

Sovereignty also means that operators retain control over their data and infrastructure decisions. The platform does not require dependence on a single hardware vendor or a specific public cloud provider. Operators choose where workloads run and what resources they use, which is the technical foundation for meeting jurisdictional data requirements and for maintaining auditability across the infrastructure stack.

A partner ecosystem built for real-world deployment

Broadcom works with a growing ecosystem of Network Equipment Providers and silicon vendors to ensure VMware Telco Cloud Platform delivers value across the telco value chain, giving operators access to best-of-breed solutions while maintaining the consistency and control that mission-critical operations require.

Additional resources

The resources below address specific operational and compliance challenges operators face today.

Blogs

Demo videos

The conversations this week at MWC reflect an industry focused on operational execution. Operators are asking how to manage compliance requirements without slowing down modernization, automate lifecycle management at scale, and position their existing infrastructure to support AI workloads.

VMware Telco Cloud Platform is designed to address these questions. Contact your Broadcom representative to discuss how we can support your transformation objectives.

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