A year in review: Key takeaways Capacity Media’s 2024 events

Here's a look at the key takeaways that shaped discussions and strategic directions at a few of our events:

AI-driven technologies and network transformation strategies emerged as central themes across events.

At Capacity Asia, earlier this month, Sharat Sinha, CEO of Airtel Business, pointed out that AI is crucial for optimising digital infrastructure and delivering advanced services.

Meanwhile, one interesting point that came from the keynote chat show at Capacity Europe 2024, in October, was uncertainty on exactly how big AI-driven demand will be.

According to Telefónica’s Gustavo Carvalho AI-driven demand will align with the 20-30% annual growth his company’s networks have consistently experienced in recent years. Offering a more optimistic outlook, Didem Ün Ateş projected that by 2030, AI would power 30% of all worked hours across the economy.

However, at Messaging and SMS World, in June, it was revealed that AI is facilitating fraudulent activity, with spammers automating attacks at scale. Elsewhere, at ITW Asia, Sinha spoke about the company’s anti-spam AI network to block spam calls and messages – an initiative that cut out 99.5% of all such traffic on the network.

Building on a theme discussed at Capacity Asia in 2023 and various other industry events, the trend of companies trading off latency for access to power (ideally sustainable power) regarding data centre construction and colocation is continuing.

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors were heavily discussed, particularly at ITW Africa, which took place in September.

At the event, there were discussions on bridging the digital gender gap and the environmental costs of new telecom technologies.

Meanwhile, at the Data Cloud World Congress, in June this year, there was also the discussion around large data centres as grid-interactive entities, not just off-takers, looking at the circular economy and the role that data centres will play.

Months later, at ITW Asia, similar talks were held with sustainability remaining a core focus, with major players like Microsoft using AI to meet its carbon-negative goals by 2030.

Microsoft cloud ESG policy and planning director of APAC, Kavickumar Murunganathan claims the technology giant has made significant strides in addressing its carbon footprint and investing in environmental innovation.

With the scene set by recent high-profile submarine cable outages, the resilience of communications networks took up a lot of stage time at ITW Asia 2024.

A session dedicated to creating disaster-resilient networks generated some interesting insights on this topic. A common theme is that it is better to engineer resilience into network planning in general rather than chasing cable breaks around the ocean as and when they occur – a strategy complicated by the continued shortage of cable ships.

Subsea cables continued to play a crucial role in expanding global connectivity. At ITW Africa, it was revealed that the continent is witnessing an unprecedented surge in subsea capacity, the largest ever recorded in any market.

While an anticipated drop in prices is expected to drive demand for this expanded capacity, significant investment is needed in critical areas such as fibre backbone infrastructure, data centers, last-mile connectivity, energy system and digital literacy to fully leverage the new capacity.

Earlier this year, at Messaging and SMS World, it was revealed, that trust in SMS as a communications channel is at an all-time low, which is pushing enterprises to use alternative channels such as RCS, WhatsApp, CPaaS, and even email.

However, months later, at ITW Asia, delegates also heard of explosive growth in business (or rather A2P) messaging, including via OTT messaging apps, with a four-member panel diving deep into the issue.

To take an example, 90% of call centre interactions in Indonesia now take place over WhatsApp, according to Meta’s Pushpendra Singh. Government initiatives on digital adoption and booming ecommerce are also driving authentication-based messaging uptake.

However, the constant threat of messaging fraud is front of mind of the industry. With trust in the platform the foundation of its growth in usage levels, panellists mentioned the need for regular interactions with regulators to cut fraud levels.

At events like Capacity Europe 2024, experts discussed the ongoing struggles and strategies for monetising 5G networks.

A major strategy discussed at Capacity Europe was the adoption of private 5G networks. These networks are tailored to specific enterprise needs, providing secure, low-latency connectivity for industries such as manufacturing, automotive and healthcare.

Meanwhile, at ITW Africa, the potential for 5G to unlock business opportunities in key sectors like agriculture, mining, and logistics was highlighted.

Similarly, at ITW Asia, experts discussed how the roll-out of 5G is transforming industries in fast-developing economies, and how the counties have been pushing to integrate 5G into their digital ecosystems, with a focus on smart cities, autonomous vehicles and IoT applications.