Kanika Atri

Telecom operators are adopting open-source AI models as a core strategic component, with 89% of respondents in NVIDIA's State of AI in Telecommunications report citing their importance. Open models enable telcos to customize AI for network operations, customer service, and edge deployment while maintaining control and reducing costs compared to proprietary alternatives. NVIDIA and partners are releasing telecom-specific models like Nemotron 3 Large Telco Model to accelerate this shift.

Major U.S. and Asian telecom operators announced AI grids at NVIDIA GTC 2026, leveraging their distributed network infrastructure to run AI inference at the edge. These geographically distributed computing platforms use existing data centers, power, and connectivity across roughly 100,000 network sites worldwide to deliver AI services closer to users and devices. AT&T, Comcast, Spectrum, and Akamai are among operators moving from concept to deployment, with use cases ranging from IoT and real-time applications to cloud gaming and media production.