The Malagasy government plans to connect more than 1,600 villages to telecommunications services, in partnership with Chinese technology company Huawei. This initiative aims to accelerate the country’s digital transformation. The project was revealed last week by Stéphanie Delmotte (pictured), Minister of Digital Development, Posts and Telecommunications, during an interview with Huawei.

The village coverage project will follow the “Digital Menabe Project,” which aims to connect 200,000 people in the Menabe region and for which a partnership agreement has already been signed with Huawei. The Malagasy government is also targeting coverage in 95% of remote rural areas. For example, Ms. Delmotte praised Huawei’s solutions, including “Rural Star ,” which are “technologically advanced, offer wide coverage, are cost-effective, easy to deploy, and perfectly suited to large-scale deployment.”

According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the 4G network covered only 33% of the Malagasy population, estimated at around 31.2 million in 2023. 2G and 3G covered 88.5% and 68.2%, respectively, while the 5G coverage rate was 6.12%. Regarding usage, the ITU estimates the internet penetration rate at 20.6% of the population. The organization indicates that 38.1% of Malagasy people own a mobile phone, reflecting the mobile phone penetration rate.

“We must therefore start by improving network coverage in remote areas. In collaboration with major players in the telecommunications sector, such as Huawei, we have implemented a program of innovative initiatives to ensure that no region is left behind in the digital world,” the minister said.

It should be noted, however, that the minister did not specify the implementation timeline for the program to connect villages to telecom services. Furthermore, beyond deploying infrastructure and expanding network coverage, the Malagasy government will need to address the obstacles limiting the effective adoption of these services by the population. These challenges include accessibility to terminals (phones and smartphones), the high cost of services, and the lack of digital skills.

Source: Extensia

Huawei Technologies launched an AI-Centric Network solution during the opening of the 2025 Mobile World Conference (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain.

Mr. Yang Chaobin, Huawei’s Director of the Board and CEO of the ICT Business Group, said the emergence of high-quality, low-cost, and open-source AI models would give rise to a wide range of new innovation in applications and accelerate the advent of an intelligent world.

Mr. Yang was speaking at the Huawei Product & Solution Launch during MWC Barcelona 2025 in Spain.

MWC Barcelona 2025 opened on March 3 and is expected to end on March 6, 2025, on the theme “Converge. Connect. Create.

It is the global intersection of social policy, business leadership, and digital innovation.

He said essentially, AI-centric networks would allow carriers to go beyond traditional traffic-based monetization and start monetizing experience itself.

“This will unleash the full potential of connectivity and open up new revenue streams,” he added.

The director said advancements in AI would transform society at three levels, and they would enable a truly individualized experience for consumers, drive intelligent collaboration in organizations, and lay the groundwork for more inclusive intelligence for everyone.

He said that as for the ICT industry, while evolving technology and a more diverse range of application scenarios would create unprecedented growth opportunities, they would also raise the bar for network infrastructure.

To make the most of these opportunities, carriers need to make sweeping breakthroughs in network bandwidth, latency, coverage, and Operations and Maintenance (O&M).

He said Huawei’s AI-Centric Network solution was designed to address these needs.

“It revolutionizes network capabilities to enable all-domain connectivity. It will power a shift towards application-oriented O&M and will reshape telecom service and business models to take full advantage of new opportunities presented by AI,” Mr. Yang said.

He said AI-centric networks had a four-layered approach.

Mr. Yang explained Huawei’s solution could help carriers better prepare for a surge of new AI-powered applications since they faced some challenges moving forward with all-domain connectivity.

“With more in-depth collaboration between AI and networks, carriers will be able to optimize resource orchestration for routing, bandwidth, and so on,” he said.

This will provide intelligent applications with universal network access, ultra-high uplink and downlink, and service-level agreement (SLA) assurance.

The director said with application-oriented O&M, advances in AI applications would give rise to more complex service scenarios and massively diverse experience requirements.

This will necessitate a shift from traditional, resource-oriented network O&M to a more application-oriented approach.

He said Huawei’s Telecom Foundation Model supported predictive and proactive O&M, experience optimization based on application-level awareness, and tailored, more fine-grained operations.

“Carriers will be able to significantly enhance the efficiency of network O&M while taking user experience to entirely new levels,” he said.

On the Enhanced AI-to-X services, he said at the individual user level, AI-centric networks could deliver the right experience for different AI scenarios by assigning the exact levels of bandwidth, latency, and reliability needed.

“At the organizational level, they can break through bottlenecks in capacity and response times configured for person-to-person interactions, evolving networks to support person-to-agent and even agent-to-agent interactivity,” he said.

Mr. Yang said AI-centric networks would enable ubiquitous connectivity to speed up AI adoption in public services like education and healthcare, providing more inclusive value for communities around the world.

Innovative business models.

“We need to join hands and work together across the telecom industry,” Yang Chaobin added.

“By exposing network capabilities, collaborating with different industries, and engaging in scenario-specific innovation, we can make the most of new growth opportunities in the age of AI and bring the world one step closer to a brighter, more intelligent future,” he said 

Source: GNA

Chinese telecoms firm Huawei has partnered with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to promote the conservation of a marine protected area on Kenya’s south coast.   

NAIROBI, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) — Chinese telecoms firm Huawei has partnered with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to promote the conservation of a marine protected area on Kenya’s south coast.

The three-year project, which was unveiled Monday, seeks to protect the ecological health of Kisite-Mpunguti Marine Park and Reserve, a biodiversity hotspot located on the edge of Kenya’s south coastal county of Kwale.

Other implementing partners in the Tech4 Nature project include Kenya Wildlife Service and Wildlife Research and Training Institute, a state agency, according to a statement by Huawei issued in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, Tuesday.

The project is aligned with Huawei’s TECH4ALL initiative and the IUCN Green List as its primary goal is to improve the monitoring and management efficiency of the marine protected area, which is home to pristine coral reefs as well as iconic but endangered species, like green turtles and bottlenose dolphins.

Huawei Kenya Media Director Khadija Mohammed Ahmed underscored the need to leverage technology and innovations to boost the health and resilience of marine ecosystems, threatened by climate change and human activities.

“Innovative thinking and smart solutions are already helping to mitigate some of the world’s most pressing environmental problems,” Khadija said.

The project will entail the deployment of underwater cameras, photogrammetry and audio monitoring technologies to monitor marine life, including biomass and parrot fish populations, at the Kisite-Mpunguti Marine Park and Reserve, according to Huawei.

The technological solutions will also monitor substrate cover in the reef ecosystems, seagrass cover and the occurrence of green turtles and bottlenose dolphins, classified on the IUCN Red List as endangered and vulnerable, respectively.

Innocent Kabenga, the country representative at the IUCN Kenya Country Office, said the introduction of the novel technology will help capture and analyze data in the marine protected area, boosting its conservation and unleashing benefits to local communities.

The technological solution deployed by Huawei and partners is artificial intelligence trained to recognize specific target species by sight and sound, providing real-time data-driven insights into the behaviors, population dynamics and distribution of biodiversity in the marine reserve.

It will also be able to identify boats used for illegal fishing and send alerts for rangers to intervene in real time, said Huawei, adding that a digital power solution and improved network connectivity at the park and watch tower will enhance rapid transmission of collected data to a cloud server for analysis.

Adan Kala, the senior assistant director at Coast Conservation Area at Kenya Wildlife Service, said that digital tools, if deployed in a targeted manner, are key to revolutionizing marine conservation in the country.

Source: Xinhua