The Strategic Role of Telecom Providers Across the AI Value Chain 2026

Sovereign AI platform and model services Sovereign AI platform and model services provide the software, orchestration and governance layer above sovereign compute, enabling organizations to ingest data, build and deploy models and manage AI entirely within national boundaries. The sovereign AI platform services layer, which delivers the controlled environment for sovereign AI development and operations, includes: –Agent builders: low-code development tools and software development kits (SDKs) that help organizations build agentic applications within national boundaries –The LLM orchestrator: a model hub to select and route workloads across approved local, open-source or commercial models, which can be customized for each use case –Sovereign regulatory controls: monitoring and control tools that ensure data flows, model outputs and logs adhere to national AI policies and data remains within sovereign boundaries –Data layer/cognitive brain: a data federation layer that unifies data products, applies sovereign data governance rules and enforces data policy adoption Sovereign model services extend the platform with models and model governance for compliant deployments. They include industry-specific LLMs and small language models (SLMs) adapted to local compliance and performance requirements and sector-tailored model capabilities (such as healthcare models that embed national clinical standards and KPIs). CASE STUDY 9 Telenor AI Factory, a sovereign AI platform anchored in national trust  Telenor AI factory shows how a telecom operator can deliver sovereign AI, harnessing its role as a trusted operator of national digital infrastructure. Fully Norwegian-owned and -operated, it combines in-country GPU infrastructure with developer tooling, low-latency networking and high-capacity/high-performance storage based on NVIDIA architecture. A complete sovereign AI stack also requires a responsible governance layer to ensure transparency and safety. CSPs can embed regulated assurance into AI by providing the frameworks, transparency tools and audit mechanisms required for ethical, interoperable AI adoption. In doing so, they can assume a long-term role as stewards of digital trust across national and industry boundaries. Customer demand is accelerating the push for full-stack AI sovereignty. Public agencies, financial institutions, energy providers and healthcare systems increasingly require platforms that can ingest sensitive data, manage model life cycles and enable cross-ecosystem collaboration – without exposing intellectual property or breaching compliance. While sovereign infrastructure provides physical control over data residency, only 22% of organizations currently enforce sovereignty at the model layer. This gap is currently a critical concern, as organizations seek integrity, traceability and governance of AI operating within national or sector-specific boundaries. In parallel, governments are pressuring major cloud providers to regionalize platforms through partnerships with local players to align with regulatory priorities and national interests. Telcos have a clear right to play in sovereign AI. With nationwide networks, data centre footprints and longstanding relationships with public agencies and regulated enterprises, telcos occupy a trusted position to host and govern sovereign AI platforms and model services. Their ability to integrate connectivity, edge compute and secure data handling enables them to offer controlled, locally operated environments for model development and deployment. What’s needed is a standardized blueprint for scaling AI model services at scale – one that prevents agents and models from becoming isolated, one-off deployments (as proposed in the TM Forum MODaaS paper47). Sovereign AI platform services open monetization opportunities through subscription tiers, model life cycle management and use-based pricing for training and inference within regulated contexts. Additional value lies in ecosystem participation, where telcos facilitate collaboration and cross-sector data-sharing under unified policy controls. As adoption of the sovereign mandate expands across sectors, the business case for compliant shared platforms grows stronger. The Strategic Role of Telecom Providers across the AI Value Chain 17