Global telecommunications operators are facing a significant opportunity to move beyond traditional connectivity offerings and establish themselves as essential providers of artificial intelligence infrastructure. According to a new report from ABI Research, the global telco industry could generate over an unspecified multibillion-dollar figure in GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) revenue by 2030. This forecasted surge is being fueled by both rising enterprise demand for sophisticated GPU compute capabilities and the intensifying focus by governments on ensuring artificial intelligence sovereignty within national or regional boundaries.
The development of ´AI factories´ and the strategic enhancement of data center assets are at the heart of this transformation. As of the first quarter of 2025, seventeen major telcos—including SoftBank, Reliance Jio, Telenor, TELUS, and Ooredoo—have either constructed or announced plans for NVIDIA-powered artificial intelligence factories. While most of these are located in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa are also seeing growing deployments. These facilities are not solely for internal operations; many are positioned to offer GPUaaS to external enterprise and government customers, aiming to serve the distributed and sovereignty-sensitive workloads that are increasingly in demand.
Analyst Larbi Belkhit from ABI Research emphasized that while the telco GPUaaS market is nascent, it is rapidly gaining traction. He sees telcos as well-positioned to become trusted partners for enterprises and governments that require local, regulated artificial intelligence deployment. The inflection point is expected around 2027, when acceleration in GPUaaS maturity will drive rapid revenue growth. Beyond GPUaaS, telcos are exploring broader monetization strategies through developing AI-as-a-Service offerings, aiming to set themselves apart from more generic cloud providers and create enduring value across regulated and sovereignty-driven sectors.
The observations are detailed in ABI Research’s ´The Telco GPUaaS Opportunity´ report, which is a component of the firm´s wider telco artificial intelligence research services. The analysis covers current deployments, market readiness, and strategic recommendations for telcos eyeing leadership in the new artificial intelligence infrastructure landscape.
