Telecom Argentina plans to convert its 16 data centers in the country to operate as Edge computing nodes with greater capacity to support AI loads.

Of the company's 16 data centers, five are for enterprise customer workloads, while the rest are for Telecom's exclusive use, reports BNamericas. The company reportedly aims to take each site to 10MW, though timelines will depend on customer demand.

Julio Hutka, Telecom's B2B business director, explained that the strategy responds to the need for proximity processing of AI models that have already been trained in international computing centers.

"That Edge computing, that inference computing, is done in data centers close to us: the 16 data centers that Telecom has in Argentina that are preparing to take on that challenge," he said, during a presentation at Telecom SummIT on September 2 in Buenos Aires.

"We will increase our computing capacity by a factor of five," he said, describing the expected growth over the next few years.

In addition to the modernization of its data centers, the teleoperator is also working on the integration of fifth-generation networks.

"From Telecom, we are developing data centers for Edge, communication networks in 5G [...] and database structure engineering," Hutka highlighted.

Telecom has more than 20 AI models in testing or production phase for customer management, marketing, and network administration. By expanding the capacity of its data centers, Telecom intends to reinforce this deployment and facilitate the adoption of AI in strategic sectors of the Argentine economy.

Telecom Argentina, which is shutting down its copper network and building out its 5G network, operates a core data center in the Pacheco area of Buenos Aires. That 10MW site is largely full and occupied by a major hyperscaler. BNAmericas reports a new module is being deployed at the Pacheco site.

The telco is also a known Google Cloud customer.

This piece was automatically translated from DCD's Spanish site and edited by a member of DCD's editorial staff.