Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor has appointed Amol Phadke, formerly of Google Cloud, as its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in order to strengthen its AI initiatives, the company announced on Tuesday. Phadke brings valuable experience from heading Google Cloud's telecom business and previous roles at British Telecom, Alcatel-Lucent, and Accenture's network services unit. Telenor CEO Sigve Brekke emphasized the importance of staying at the forefront of technology change, especially for a legacy company like Telenor. The partnership between Telenor and Google Cloud, established in 2021, aims to digitalize global operations and explore joint service offerings as part of Telenor's ongoing digital transformation plan. While Telenor has been utilizing AI for the past 10 years to improve network energy efficiency, Brekke highlighted the need to focus on innovation and collaborations to transform the traditional telecom company further. Both Phadke and Brekke expressed their intention to use AI to enhance various aspects of operations, such as predicting traffic demand, optimizing bandwidth allocation, and improving customer interactions.

Telenor plans to leverage AI without job cuts and instead augment human capabilities in processes. Phadke acknowledged the slow adoption of AI in the industry due to its competitive nature and historical legacy. Telenor has also announced the appointment of Petter-Boerre Furberg as the head of its key Asia unit, replacing Joergen C. Arentz Rostrup, who will assume the role of head of Telenor Nordics. In recent years, Telenor has completed significant mergers in Malaysia and Thailand as part of its expansion strategy in Southeast Asia.