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Telefónica is a century old. Once, it embodied Spanish modernity in its most tangible form: cables, exchanges, uniforms, physical presence. Today, it is something else — or is attempting to become something else entirely. Less visible. More abstract. More algorithmic. The central question is no longer how Telefónica grows, but what it is becoming.
For most European consumers, the transition from 4G to 5G has felt underwhelming. Video streams load just as fast, messages arrive instantly and smartphones look unchanged. Yet beneath this apparent continuity, mobile networks are undergoing their most profound transformation since their invention. What is changing is not speed, but function — and with it, who creates value, who controls infrastructure and who sets the rules.
Europe has always expressed its values through infrastructure. Roman roads were not merely paths of stone; they were instruments of order and reach. Railways shaped the industrial nation-state. Broadcasting networks created mass culture and democratic publics. Infrastructure, in other words, has never been neutral. It is where political intent quietly hardens into daily reality.
For more than a decade, artificial intelligence has been presented as a promise: smarter decisions, safer systems, better services. In recent months, however, AI has increasingly appeared in a different role — as a rationale for large-scale job cuts. Few announcements illustrate this tension more clearly than the recent restructuring at ABN AMRO.
While the U.S. telecom market is dominated by scale-driven giants such as AT&T and Verizon—racing toward AI-native networks—the Netherlands tells a different, distinctly European story. Here, the transformation of telecom is less about sheer size and more about fiber depth, reliability and human-centered design.
I ended my official career as a journalist fifteen years ago. I’m no longer chasing scoops, headlines or instant notoriety. Today, I act as a signifier, a bridge between complex industrial realities and the broader conversation about Europe’s technological, industrial and strategic future. That role comes with responsibility, but also freedom: I can ask questions that others hesitate to voice.
For decades, the role of a telecom operator was clearly defined. Build networks. Sell connectivity. Optimise reliability and scale. Innovation meant faster speeds, lower latency and broader coverage, while intelligence lived higher up the stack — in devices, platforms and applications owned by others. Deutsche Telekom is now dismantling that model using First Principles Thinking.
Artificial intelligence is still debated at full volume—faster adoption, tighter rules, louder warnings. Meanwhile, its most consequential effects are unfolding elsewhere. Inside Europe’s universities, AI is no longer just a tool. It is a mirror. What it reflects is unsettling. Authorship weakens as evidence of thought. Efficiency detaches from understanding. Control, once foundational to academic authority, begins to hollow out.
Washington, DC (well, sort of). Happy New Year, folks! 🎉 As we waddle into 2026, I’ve got big news from the nest: I’ve been promoted! That’s right – your favorite feathered frenzy, the one who just quacked sense into the Oval Office about Europe’s “luxury problems” in AI, is now the Cartoon Executive Officer (CEO) of Altair Media Europe.
There is a quiet shift happening in how technology is understood. For years, innovation was explained by engineers, promoted by corporations and regulated by policymakers. Each spoke their own language. Each believed their version was sufficient. And for a long time, it worked — or seemed to.
