AI is critical to operators’ bid to reduce energy consumption in the 5G era

Telecoms operators are under increasing pressure to reduce their energy consumption, and this issue has been rising steadily to the top of their corporate agendas.

There are many reasons for this:

• The current spike in fuel costs will drive up energy costs and, if action is not taken, this could put opex efficiency programmes at risk 
• Consumers are increasingly concerned about the environment and interested in the green credentials of the companies they purchase from
• Governments around the world are putting sustainability at the heart of their economic plans. Many operators have pledged to support large-scale sustainability initiatives such as the European Commission’s 2019 ’Green Deal’, which set a goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050 across the bloc.
• National and supra-national goals are filtering through to specific regulatory policies in the telecoms market, such as India’s mandate for renewable energy sources to be used in rural cell towers.

These combined pressures are driving a rising number of operators to put environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues at the very top of their long term strategic agendas. As José-María Álvarez-Pallete López (CEO of Telefónica) put it in November 2019: “The central axis of our strategy requires innovative, intelligent and sustainable technology solutions that generate a positive impact on the environment and help manage the digital transition.”