ITW Asia 2025

AI is racing ahead, and every sector is exploring how it can reshape the way they work. For telcos and infrastructure players, its potential to revolutionise operations is undeniable, yet the industry still lacks a unified view on where the technology can yield most value. In this session, four compelling case studies will bring AI’s role to life, showcasing real-world applications that drive efficiency, cut costs and deliver added value.  

• Network simulation and planning  

• Driving infrastructure sharing and revenue generation 

• Streamlining workflows and processes 

To remain commercially relevant and competitively differentiated, Asia’s connectivity industry must go beyond bandwidth and become the foundational layer powering AI-driven transformation in enterprises and government. 

 

From smart cities to AI-assisted manufacturing and connected healthcare, public and private sector demand for low-latency, intelligent services is rising fast. Meeting that demand requires the combined muscle of telcos, towercos, and data centre operators—working together to localise compute, distribute AI workloads, and enable vertical-specific innovation. 

 

• AI at the edge, enabled by infrastructure: How are telcos, towercos, and data centres collaborating to deliver real-world edge use cases—like smart traffic systems, predictive industrial maintenance, and AI-enhanced logistics? 

• Next-gen digital infrastructure roles: How are towercos moving up the stack as neutral hosts or edge compute enablers, and how are data centres adapting to support dense, AI-ready workloads? 

• Evolving business models: How are telcos, towercos, and DC operators reshaping their commercial strategies to align with hyperscalers, vertical platforms, and national digital agendas? 

• Strategic right to play: As the demand for sovereign AI and regulated cloud increases, what role can regional infrastructure players take in enabling secure, compliant, scalable services? 

In this interactive session, delegates will join parallel breakout roundtables, each dedicated to a key APAC market. Led by local experts and industry peers, these discussions will explore the country’s latest market dynamics, evolving regulatory environment, and emerging growth opportunities. Participants will share insights on common challenges, examine investment prospects, and connect with potential partners active in the same market. Whether you’re seeking policy clarity, market intelligence, or strategic alliances, these focused country tables provide a unique forum to gain actionable insights and build relationships that can accelerate your presence in the region. 

Country roundtables include: 

• India 

• Indonesia 

• Malaysia 

• Philippines 

• Thailand 

• Vietnam 

As MNOs face intensifying financial pressures, the dynamics between MNOs and tower companies are entering a new phase. Tower leases represent one of the largest, and fastest-growing, operational expenditures for telcos, often outpacing revenue growth. While long-term contracts provide stability, questions are mounting around whether the current cost structures are sustainable in the long run. This session explores how these critical relationships can evolve to meet changing commercial realities.  

• What alternatives or hybrid models might emerge to align incentives more closely?  

• How can towercos deliver flexible, cost-efficient solutions while maintaining investor confidence and business resilience?  

• Drawing on global case studies, including renegotiated lease models, active sharing arrangements, and co-investment structure, how can both parties adapt to forge more collaborative, future-proof partnerships 

As hyperscalers and colocation providers ramp up investments across Asia-Pacific, the data centre construction ecosystem is under immense pressure to scale faster, more sustainably, and across new locations.  

 

Navigate the realities of building next-generation digital infrastructure in the region: from labour and skills gaps to supply chain fragility.  

While SMS has long been a cornerstone of carrier services, the rise of OTT messaging platforms, shifting consumer behaviour and failure to prevent fraudulent activity is forcing carriers to evolve. This session dives into the future of SMS, RCS, and business messaging, exploring how carriers can modernise, monetise, and reposition messaging as a strategic asset for enterprise and consumer communication.  

 

• Survival of SMS: how can SMS remain relevant amid the rise of WhatsApp, WeChat, and other OTT platforms? 

• Enterprise messaging: how are carriers leveraging A2P SMS and RCS to create value in business-to-consumer engagement? 

• Harnessing CPaaS: How carriers can leverage CPaaS to deliver programmable communications, embed themselves deeper into enterprise workflows, and tap into API-driven growth. 

• Monetisation strategies: Can SMS and RCS become premium services again through innovation, bundling, or APIs? Or is RCS expected to cannibalise SMS? 

• Fraud prevention & trust: What tools and standards are available to secure messaging channels, especially for authentication and alerts? 

The relationship between hyperscalers and connectivity carriers is no longer transactional—it’s transformational. Together, they are shaping a new foundation for Asia’s digital economy: from distributed cloud infrastructure and edge compute to AI workloads, satellite connectivity, and the monetisation of network APIs. But as the lines blur between cloud and connectivity, what does this evolving partnership mean for business models, go-to-market strategies, and long-term infrastructure planning? 

With heightened interest rates, an escalating cost base and competitive pressures squeezing margins, optimising opex has become mission-critical for telcos, infracos, and their partners. This session explores the biggest opex cost drivers in the crosshairs over board room tables, and lays out the key strategies being put in place to reduce spend without compromising performance. 

Key discussion points 

• From real estate and leases, to field operations and software licensing - what are the most significant opex costs? 

• Where can savings most readily be made? 

• What will be the role of new technologies and AI? 

• What partnerships and business models are under review? 

• What are the opex reduction targets for the year ahead? 

As cities become smarter and more connected, the foundation of digital transformation lies in reimagining the infrastructure that powers it. This session explores the evolving business models, partnerships and technology advances driving next-generation networks. 

• What does “good” look like in the interplay between infracos, telcos, municipalities, utilities and other stakeholders – what examples are we seeing across the region? 

• How are permitting restrictions driving innovation in infrastructure design and partnerships?  

• What strategies are proving effective in optimising ground lease and site deployment costs? 

• How can digital infrastructure serve alternative customer bases and use cases and drive growth for digital infra investors?  

Explore the latest findings in the Digital Infrastructure Leaders Report shaped by insights from the region’s leading digital infrastructure movers and shakers  

AI, sustainability, and surging demand are redefining what a future‑proof data centre looks like. Rising rack densities, energy constraints, and evolving ESG requirements are challenging traditional assumptions about design, cooling, and site longevity. 

 

As AI reshapes the architecture of digital infrastructure and power demands escalate, data centre design is being pushed into uncharted territory. Traditional design assumptions — around rack density, cooling, energy availability, and site lifespan — are rapidly becoming obsolete. 

Satellite technology is revolutionising Asia’s connectivity, bridging rural gaps, supporting 5G and IoT, and ensuring network resilience. However, spectrum regulation, high deployment costs, and competition among key players pose challenges. This panel will explore the future of satellite communications, investment trends, and the obstacles to widespread adoption.  

• Expanding connectivity: How LEO and GEO satellites complement fibre and mobile networks in remote areas.  

• Hybrid connectivity models: How is connectivity changing with the convergence of satellite and terrestrial models? What is the commercial model for wholesale partnerships with the satco operators? 

Asia has become a magnet for digital infrastructure capital—but the region’s vast diversity means investors are playing a complex game of regulatory navigation, infrastructure partnership, and geopolitical alignment. From hyperscale joint ventures in Indonesia to sovereign data centre platforms in India and carrier-neutral expansions in the Philippines, investment choices hinge on much more than demand forecasts. 

 

Take a behind-the-scenes look at how institutional investors, private equity firms, and infrastructure funds are evaluating risk, timing, scalability, and exit strategies in one of the most high-growth—but nuanced—regions in the world. 

As telecom operators race to meet the demands of a cloud-first world, Network-as-a-Service is emerging as a key enabler for enterprise agility, infrastructure flexibility, and scalable service delivery. This session explores how carriers are transforming traditional network functions into programmable, on-demand services to better serve enterprises and unlock new B2B revenue streams. Discussion points include: 

 

• Adoption drivers: What’s accelerating the shift toward NaaS in Asia’s telecom ecosystem? 

• Enterprise transformation: How can carriers meet the evolving demands of digital enterprises through NaaS offerings? 

• Revenue strategies: What monetisation models are proving most effective with NaaS, and how can carriers diversify beyond connectivity? 

• Tech enablers: How do 5G, edge computing, AI, and SDN/NFV underpin scalable NaaS deployments? 

Open RAN is poised to reshape not only the vendor landscape but also the broader investment model for mobile networks. This session explores how Open RAN could democratise the network stack, shift financial responsibilities across the ecosystem, and catalyse new partnerships between MNOs, towercos, vendors, and neutral hosts. 

• To what extent will Open RAN will gain widespread traction globally or remain a niche strategy shaped by specific market dynamics, regulatory environments, and operator priorities. 

• How does the Open RAN movement open the door to new players (such as towercos) taking on capital investments traditionally made by MNOs (e.g. RRU and fronthaul) and reduce capex duplication 

• What is the appetite of MNOs and towercos for this change and what could the financial model look like? 

• Who is best placed to play an orchestration role, bringing together the various network components  

The telecom industry has spent the past two decades in recurring CapEx waves - 2G, 3G, 4G, and now 5G, each bringing an intense infrastructure build followed by a lull. But are we now entering a different era?  

Whilst developing markets continue to show strong growth in mobile traffic, data growth in more developed countries is slowing. Globally, operator CapEx-to-revenue ratios are falling, raising the question: have we reached peak investment in access networks?  

• In which countries is data traffic showing strong growth and where are there signs of tapering off? 

• Will late-5G markets mirror the growth trajectories of early adopters like South Korea and Singapore, or chart their own course based on unique economic and usage dynamics? 

• Will the much hyped 5G use cases materialise and translate into increased traffic volumes?  

• Will the AI traffic explosion in data centre interconnect translate across to access networks? 

• What do operator financial disclosures reveal about spending patterns and if the old model is ending, what does this means for telco strategy, vendor demand, and infrastructure investors? 

Power remains one of the biggest operational challenges and costs for mobile networks in off-grid and poor-grid locations, especially across rural Asia and parts of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. This session explores what operational excellence looks like in managing energy at the cell site level, and how innovation, digitalisation, and new business models are helping operators and towercos address power-related pain points. 

• How is more energy-efficient equipment (including low-power radios and rectifiers), advanced battery technologies, and renewable integration reshaping site design? 

• What new highs are being reached in terms of remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, and AI/ML-driven energy optimisation? 

• How are partnerships with ESCOs evolving across the region? 

• To what extent can joint digitalisation-electrification initiatives play a role through better better engagement between the telecom, power and government sectors? 

As Asia races to scale data centre capacity, power access is emerging as the single greatest bottleneck to digital infrastructure growth. AI workloads are accelerating the shift toward ultra-high-density infrastructure, yet the region’s grid systems, energy pricing structures, sustainability goals, and storage limitations are struggling to keep up. 

 

Discover how Asia Pacific’s energy ecosystem—across policy, utility, investment, and innovation—must evolve to enable reliable, scalable, and low-carbon data centre expansion.  

The war in Ukraine triggered an unprecedented energy crisis across Europe, sending electricity prices soaring and exposing telecom operators to severe and unexpected cost shocks. The impact on telco balance sheets was material, forcing executives to reassess risk exposure, renegotiate contracts, and accelerate energy resilience strategies. While APAC markets have not experienced the same uniform scale of disruption, regional volatility driven by fuel shortages, extreme weather, and rising LNG and coal prices is placing upward pressure on energy costs. 

• What can the APAC telecom sector learn from Europe's experience around the strategic importance of energy procurement, the role of hedging, and the urgency of diversifying power sources? 

• Are rising energy costs coupled with escalating resiliency requirements necessitating increased deployment of on-site back-up power solutions? 

• To what extent is energy management is evolving from a back-office function to a board-level imperative? 

• To what extent are ESG objectives still front and centre in energy decisions? 

Natural disasters are a persistent threat across many telecom markets, typhoons in the Philippines, earthquakes in Indonesia, floods in Bangladesh, wildfires in Australia. For telcos, resilience is no longer just about redundancy; it’s about designing networks, operations, and partnerships that can withstand and rapidly recover from extreme events. This session explores practical strategies to harden infrastructure, ensure business continuity, and restore services quickly when disaster strikes—while balancing costs, regulatory requirements, and community needs. We’ll showcase lessons learned from operators that have successfully navigated major outages and examine emerging technologies that can make networks “disaster-ready” from the outset. Key talking points 

• Integrating disaster modelling into network planning and AI-driven outage detection  

• Infrastructure hardening techniques and power resilience 

• Alignment with national disaster preparedness frameworks and leveraging USFs for resilience 

• Rapid recovery capabilities: COWs, satellite coverage and roaming agreements 

Rural and remote connectivity in Asia-Pacific remains a challenge despite the region’s rapid digital growth. How can new technologies, business models and policy frameworks effectively address the issue? What regional success stories and progress exists?  

• Geographic dispersion, monsoon climates and disaster-prone areas - what are APAC’s unique challenges and pain points? 

• What are operator roadmaps for FTTP, mobile and FWA in currently underserved areas? 

• What innovations exist in low cost, quick to deploy cell sites? 

• How can backhaul requirements be met more effectively? E-band 

• What business models are capabilities are required to deploy and manage remote infrastructure effectively? 

• How are LEO constellations materially changing views on how the connectivity gap should and will be addressed? 

• Innovative financing models: the role for universal service funds, DFIs and private capital? 

As telcos seek to optimise costs and accelerate coverage, a range of strategies, from M&A and national roaming to wholesale open-access networks, spectrum sharing, active sharing, joint ventures, and infraco partnership, have emerged. Each approach aims to reduce redundant infrastructure, optimise capex and opex, and deliver better network outcomes for the end consumer. This panel explores the range and effectiveness of these initiatives: 

• How effectively have sharing and collaboration strategies met financial targets? 

• To what extent have they advanced broader strategic objectives such as network reach, service quality, and market competitiveness? 

• What have been some of the key challenges faced and what has the industry learned?  

• Which models are likely to play a more material role in the future telco market? 

As Asia’s digital economies scale, the ability to store, process, and secure data within national borders is becoming a condition of market access — not a preference. The convergence of data sovereignty, AI infrastructure demand, and geopolitical risk is forcing operators, hyperscalers, and investors to radically rethink site selection, capital deployment, and public–private partnerships. 

 

Explore how sovereign-backed cloud and AI deals are reshaping the region’s data centre map — from compliance-led builds to multi-node localisation strategies.  

This high-level discussion brings together heads of government and regulatory affairs from a telco, data centre operator, fiberco and towerco to examine the evolving regulatory landscape across APAC. The panel will explore: 

• Policies & frameworks that work: Which regulations and government initiatives have most effectively advanced both business objectives and national digitalisation agendas, and which could be replicated across other markets? 

• Constructive engagement: Examples of where meaningful dialogue between industry and government has led to tangible improvements in infrastructure rollout, investment incentives and market competition. 

• Persistent roadblocks: Identifying policies, approval processes, or market structures that hinder progress and limit connectivity potential. 

• Unified industry voice: How telcos, towercos, fibrecos and data centre operators can work together to present cohesive policy recommendations that accelerate digital infrastructure deployment and bridge the digital divide. 

By bringing diverse yet interdependent segments of the digital infrastructure ecosystem into one conversation, this session will uncover actionable ways to align regulation with the region’s connectivity ambitions. 

As AI demand reshapes data centre design and scale, real estate strategy has moved to the forefront of infrastructure planning. From navigating zoning restrictions to aligning with utility capacity and local permitting frameworks, land is now a gating factor for deployment speed, investor confidence, and long-term scalability. 

While rack density, power, and cooling dominate the conversation around data centre readiness, none of it matters without fibre. Fibre networks form the digital arteries that connect data centres to carriers, clouds, cable landing stations, edge zones, and end users. Yet in many parts of Asia, fibre availability and quality lag behind hyperscale ambitions – posing an underestimated bottleneck risk.  

 

Understand the hidden dependency of data centres on dark fibre, metro interconnects, and long-haul routes — and asks how governments, telcos, and neutral providers can keep pace with AI-era connectivity demands. 

 

Asia’s connectivity market is entering a transformative era—where the convergence of infrastructure, digital services, and emerging technologies is reshaping how value is created. 5G is scaling, 6G is on the horizon, AI is redefining network intelligence, and hyperscalers are accelerating the buildout of digital infrastructure across the region. This session brings together the region’s most forward-thinking leaders to explore the viability of the traditional telco model—before broadening into a dynamic discussion on how Asia’s connectivity leaders can move beyond infrastructure and reinvent themselves as digital service and innovation platforms.  

 

• From infrastructure to intelligence: How are AI, edge compute, and network APIs driving new product innovation across Asia’s connectivity landscape? 

• Platform business models and service monetisation: What are the most promising monetisation strategies—from network-as-a-service and B2B platforms to consumer bundles and cross-industry plays? 

• Rethinking partnerships and investment: How are carriers and hyperscalers reconfiguring traditional roles and capital flows in infrastructure development—and what does this mean for long-term business viability? 

• Tech convergence at scale: How are subsea, satellite, towers, cloud, and data centres being integrated to support next-gen applications, from immersive content to industrial automation? 

• Looking toward 6G and beyond: What frontier technologies and use cases should the industry prepare for—and how can Asia lead in defining global standards and innovation ecosystems? 

The golden age of major tower M&A is drawing to a close across much of the globe, new builds are slowing, and lease rates are under pressure. MNO consolidation, active sharing, and high interest rates are squeezing margins, while towerco investors hesitate to back bold diversification. In this session, we explore how towercos can shift from passive rent collectors to active value creators in this new, more mature world: 

• What are the unmet needs or pain points of MNOs that towercos could address? 

• Which adjacencies meet the risk and reward profiles for investors? 

• What opportunities could changes in network architecture unlock? 

• Are there alternative customer bases that could contribute to significant growth? 

As 5G demand grows and indoor data usage continues to dominate, the in-building connectivity market is approaching a critical inflection point. This session will explore how the commercial and technical models for in-building solutions (IBS) are evolving across the globe. 

• Will enterprises increasingly fund their own systems to ensure quality coverage?  

• Are mobile network operators showing greater openness to sharing infrastructure inside buildings?  

• What role can regulators and industry bodies play through policies, frameworks, and technical specifications to accelerate deployment? 

• To what extend does the in-building neutral host model resonate with digital infra investors? 

As hyperscaler demand and data sovereignty reshape the digital infrastructure landscape in Asia, Southeast Asian governments are racing to position themselves as competitive, secure, and scalable destinations for data centre and cloud investments. But success hinges on more than land and power — it’s about the right regulatory frameworks, clarity on incentives, and predictable pathways for foreign investment.