The GSMA board outlined the industry’s connectivity priorities, calling for action on smartphone affordability, online scams and network investment while backing closer international cooperation on future 6G standards.

Following a board meeting in New Delhi, India, the industry association stated that although 97% of the global population live within mobile broadband coverage, 3.4 billion people remain unconnected to mobile internet. The cost of devices remains a significant barrier, with an entry-level internet-enabled handset equivalent to 44% of average monthly income for the poorest 20% of people in low- and middle-income countries.

The GSMA highlighted potential measures to improve affordability including financing schemes, targeted tax cuts and closer cooperation between device makers and memory suppliers.

It also identified scams and fraud as a growing threat, warning that although the mobile industry continues to strengthen network detection and cyber defence tools, “no single sector can tackle the threat alone”. The GSMA noted AI-generated content and deepfakes further add to risks for consumers, public trust and government objectives, calling on the industry to “join forces to counter scams with practical solutions”.

Sustained investment
The GSMA also highlighted the need for network investment and supportive policy to accelerate connectivity growth. It found mobile technologies and services generated $6 trillion in economic value in 2025, equivalent to 6.4% of global GDP. This figure is forecast to reach $11.3 trillion by 2030.

In addition, operators are projected to invest $1.2 trillion in capital expenditure between 2025 and 2030 to expand and upgrade networks, with 57% of mobile connections expected to use 5G by the end of the decade.

GSMA director general Vivek Badrinath said the sector’s next priority must be to translate 5G expansion into “meaningful value”, ensuring more people can participate in the digital economy. “This will require sustained investment, enabling policy and collaboration across the wider ecosystem,” he stressed.

Looking ahead, the industry association reiterated its support for global standards and harmonised spectrum as 6G development continues. It highlighted countries representing more than 80% of the world’s population support mobile use of the upper 6GHz band, which could provide the 200MHz to 400MHz channel bandwidths expected to be needed for 6G.

GSMA chair Gopal Vittal said that “by working through global standards and collaborating across markets, we can accelerate innovation, strengthen trust and resilience” as the industry develops the next generation of connectivity.

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Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) reportedly claimed the company had reached the “frontier” of AI, as it unveiled two new models designed to handle complex personal and professional tasks.

Following hefty investments in computing infrastructure and research, the technology giant said Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full AI mark “our most capable models to date”.

The models can handle tasks ranging from coding and document analysis to interpreting legal information, personal finance and health data.

Among key features is Active Memory, enabling the retention of relevant user information across conversations. The agents are also equipped with Active Focus to help them continue pursuing longer tasks, adapt to new information, recover from errors and ask users for clarification before taking important actions.

Meta claimed its evaluations showed strong results across benchmarks covering agent performance, memory and coding, adding the advanced Muse Wonder Full version performs better on unfamiliar tasks.

Built responsibly
Unlike its earlier open-source strategy, Meta is offering Muse Wonder through its own developer and subscription channels in a direct challenge to AI chatbots from rivals including OpenAI and Anthropic. According to the Financial Times (FT), Meta said it would charge companies from between 20 cents per million tokens for basic access to as much as $200 a month for the more powerful Muse Wonder Full. 

Speaking to the publication on the launch in which he made the comment about frontier AI, Zuckerberg added the new models would enable “much more sophisticated behaviours that are at the frontier of what is being done in the AI field”.

Meta claims Muse Wonder surpasses Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 and Fable 5.1 and OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra on certain technical measures.

Zuckerberg added that reaching this point required “a large amount of compute and investment” alongside sustained research. He told the FT that further model development and spending was under way, stating the company was “already working on the next step up”.

The chief also played down mounting concerns about increasingly capable AI systems escaping human control, declaring: “I’m much closer to the belief that AI is a technology that can be engineered with normal guardrails and built responsibly.”

Meta said its new models were trained to prevent unauthorised disclosure of private information and reject requests to facilitate harmful actions, while retaining agentic capabilities for defensive cybersecurity work.

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Elon Musk pledged to make Starlink affordable in India as he renewed his attack on billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s (pictured) telecoms dominance, days before Jio Platforms launches a record-breaking IPO.

In a series of posts on social media platform X, the SpaceX chief argued that competition from Starlink would benefit Indian consumers by expanding connectivity options. “The reality is that competition would greatly benefit the average citizen in India by giving them more choices, as it always does,” he explained, adding, “Ambani’s profits will be lower, but he is not going out of business”.

Musk also dismissed claims that Starlink would struggle to compete with Jio’s low-cost data plans while also posing a threat to the incumbent operator. “This is absurd hypocrisy and hyperbole,” he said.

His comments come as Jio Platforms targets a valuation of around $106 billion, according to Reuters, in a planned IPO that could become India’s largest-ever listing. The business includes telecoms operation Reliance Jio, which reported 524.4 million subscribers at the end of March, including 268.5 million 5G customers.

“Prime Minister Ambani“
Musk has escalated his criticism of India’s regulatory process in recent days, accusing authorities and “certain oligarchs” of delaying Starlink’s entry into the country to maintain a “monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people”.

In a separate post on Friday (9 October), he sarcastically addressed the Jio Platforms-owner as “Prime Minister Ambani” and asked whether he would “consider allowing Starlink to compete”.

He argued satellite connectivity could bring internet access to underserved communities, improve educational opportunities and enable small businesses to reach international markets.

“Please accept my humble apologies for not realizing that you are the real boss of India,” he wrote, adding “Starlink would change their lives for the better”.

India’s Ministry of Communications has rejected allegations of discriminatory treatment, stating that Starlink and incumbents Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio were at broadly the same stage of the regulatory process. All three have secured initial approvals but remain subject to outstanding security clearances before they can obtain spectrum access.

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Nvidia is reportedly in talks to either acquire or increase its investment in open-source start-up Reflection AI, as it seeks to strengthen its position in open-weight AI models and challenge lower cost Chinese rivals.

Sources told the Financial Times (FT) discussions remain at an early stage and could lead to a full acquisition, further equity investment or a deal covering chips and computing capacity. An acqui-hire, under which Nvidia would recruit staff and license technology, is another option.

A deal could apparently be reached in the coming weeks, though the terms under discussion remain unclear.

According to the report, Nvidia has already invested $800 million in Reflection AI, which was valued at $25 billion in a March funding round. Founded in 2024 by former Google DeepMind researchers, the start-up develops AI models and tools for software development.

Reflection launched its first open-weight model, Beam, last week, targeting coding and agentic tasks as it looks to compete with Chinese models such as DeepSeek and Kimi.

Open-weight models allow businesses and developers to customise AI systems and run them on their own infrastructure, potentially cutting costs compared with closed services such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.

Although Nvidia has its own Nemotron family of open-weight models, FT said it lacks a frontier-scale model of its own. In an essay published in July, CEO Jensen Huang called for a domestic open-weight “ecosystem” across the US, arguing it was essential for “creating opportunities for innovation and prosperity across the country”. “In fact, openness may be one of the most important paths to AI safety and security,” he argued, adding “relying solely on closed models is not inherently safe” as “they can be breached, misused, or fail in ways that outsiders cannot detect”.

Reflection AI has also secured substantial computing capacity from SpaceX. The deal, struck in June, gives the start-up access to Nvidia’s GB300 chips at SpaceX’s Colossus 2 facility in Memphis, Tennessee, for $150 million per month through 2029.

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