The IQ Era - Sovereignty, Security and Autonomous Networks in Practice

Why It Matters

The shift to operational AI and sovereign cloud offerings creates new revenue streams and competitive imperatives for carriers, while also raising urgent security and regulatory compliance challenges that will shape industry partnerships and market leadership.

Summary

Speakers at Mobile World Congress framed 2026 as the start of an "IQ era," where AI has moved from playground demos to concrete, operational use cases across telecoms. Telenor executives described deploying agentic AI for customer chatbots, dialogue monitoring and network operations—optimizing faults, orchestration and security responses—while stressing pragmatic, incremental adoption. They also highlighted cloud sovereignty as a commercial opportunity—announcing a sovereign cloud and an AI factory—and warned of a limited window before hyperscalers fill the space. Security remains a live concern, with post-quantum and quantum-safe networking discussed but not yet prominent in mainstream sessions.

Original Description

Terje Jensen, Senior Vice President, Telenor, speaks with Sean Kinney, Principal Analyst, RCRTech.

Recorded at MWC 2026, presented as part of RCR Wireless News' MWC Key Takeaways 2026.

Find out more here: https://www.rcrkeytakeaways.com/