Reimagining telecommunications at MWC 2023

Communications Service Providers’ (CSP) services have never been more in demand from consumers and businesses around the world. But to meet that demand, as well as drive new growth and differentiation in the midst of industry disruption, CSPs must themselves transform — including restructuring the cost base of their technology estate, unlocking the full power of their data, innovating the customer experience, and reimagining how they build, deploy, and operate their networks.

At Google Cloud, we believe that co-innovation with a broader ecosystem of customers and partners is critical to accelerating industry transformation. And so it was fantastic to be back in Barcelona at MWC 2023 this week as over 80,000 people from across the wider telecommunications landscape and adjacent industries came together to reimagine the future of the industry. Read on for a comprehensive list of all the announcements we made at the show. 

New telecom products to accelerate industry transformation

This week at MWC 2023, we were excited to announce three new telecom products to help CSPs digitally transform their networks with hybrid-cloud principles and unlock new revenue opportunities. Together, the new telecom products will offer CSPs a unified cloud solution that helps them build, deploy, and operate their hybrid cloud-native networks; collect and manage network data; and improve customer experiences through artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics. 

In addition, Google Cloud is providing CSPs the ability to deploy true cloud-native networks in a hybrid cloud environment, and run their network functions in any Google Cloud region on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).

Finally, we are very excited to see how the RAN segment of the Industry is evolving, and we have extended our edge cloud capabilities so that our partners can deploy these types of high-performance applications on our Google Distributed Cloud Edge.

Partnering for growth

As part of MWC 2023, we were also excited to highlight more on how we are collaborating with customers and partners from around the world to drive transformative business outcomes:

• Together with Deutsche Telekom and Ericsson, we shared a significant network transformation milestone, with the successful deployment of Ericsson 5G Core cloud-native network functions (CNFs) on an on-premises implementation of Google Distributed Cloud Edge.

• We announced our new collaboration with StarHub to help bolster their Cloud Infinity transformation program, and support StarHub as they create an open, secure, scalable, and energy-efficient cloud-native network for enterprises in Singapore.

• We also showcased our ability to help CSPs leverage AI to drive new business outcomes, highlighting how Orange has been partnering with Google Cloud to deploy their data in new and effective ways, using real AI to solve concrete business challenges.

Finally, we partnered with Analysys Mason to explore new industry insights on how CSPs are thinking and acting on their cloud-native network journeys.

Closing thoughts

It’s been an action-packed week of customer and partner discussions, demos across our Google Cloud and partner stands, keynote presentations and fireside chats, customer, partner and product announcements, and so much more. As we reflect back, it’s clear the industry is focused not only on what the next-generation of telecommunications looks like, but how to get there together.

Thank you to all of our customers, partners, and Google teams for a truly inspiring week! At Google Cloud, we firmly believe that we are only successful when others are successful. We look forward to the collaboration that lies ahead, and the deep ecosystems that we will create together.

We would also like to thank the City of Barcelona for welcoming us once more, and Museu Europeu d’Art Modern (MEAM) with whom we collaborated to showcase artwork of Barcelona Academy of Art students inside our Google Cloud MWC stand and reception.

To learn more about how Google Cloud is partnering with CSPs, check out our Google Cloud for Telecommunications page.