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

4Prioritization: assessing value and feasibility AI strategic plays vary significantly in value potential and execution feasibility, highlighting the tradeoffs involved for telecom providers. Based on the previous sections, expected benefits can be assessed against the investment and ongoing run rate costs required to scale. Viewed together, the value and feasibility frameworks serve as a practical proxy for ROI, helping operators prioritize their strategic growth opportunities. The value dimension reflects the relative commercial, customer and operational impact each opportunity can create. Feasibility captures the cost and complexity required to execute at scale. Taken together, the two dimensions provide a directional view of which opportunities offer strong near-term potential, which require further capability development or ecosystem alignment, and those that may be longer-term strategic bets. See Appendix A for a detailed assessment of each strategic play. The resulting matrix does not prescribe a single path. Rather, it highlights the trade-offs that each operator will need to evaluate in the context of its market, assets, partnerships and strategic ambition. Value feasibility matrix for AI strategic plays FIGURE 3 ROI of top initiatives Sovereign AI infrastructure Horizontal and vertical AI solutions Sovereign AI platform and model servicesDCI Modern telco AI techco National sovereign championExecution feasibility (cost/complexity)Value potential (benefit) High value High feasibilitySovereign AI use cases AI security and safetyNaaS AI-optimized colocation AI-first connectivity B2C AI aggregator Dedicated networks GPUaaS Low value pools (low value/ low feasibility)Frontier bets (High value/ low feasibility)Sweet spots (High value/ high feasibility) Efficiency plays (Low value/ high feasibility) The Strategic Role of Telecom Providers across the AI Value Chain 22