- Red Hat deepens global telco partnerships to accelerate cloud-native transformation and build AI-ready networks
- Major carriers standardize on Red Hat hybrid cloud platforms to modernize infrastructure, scale 5G and improve operational efficiency
- Open innovation and ecosystem momentum reinforce Red Hat’s role in telecom cloud and AI deployment
MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2026, BARCELONA — At Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona, Red Hat underscored its commitment to advancing telecommunications industry transformation with a slate of strategic collaborations and platform adoptions focused on cloud-native modernization, AI readiness, and network innovation. From strengthening long-standing operator relationships to empowering carriers to adopt hybrid cloud and automation technologies, Red Hat’s announcements mirrored the broad shift toward open, scalable and AI-capable infrastructure across global service providers.
Expanding strategic collaborations with top telcos
One of the announcements from Red Hat’s MWC presence was the extension and deepening of key partnerships with major telecommunications players. Red Hat strengthened its long-term collaboration with Bell Canada, reaffirming a multi-year commitment to help accelerate network innovation through integration of multiple Red Hat hybrid cloud technologies, including Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus, Red Hat OpenStack Platform, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, and the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. This extended agreement aims to support Bell Canada’s trajectory toward higher performance, more reliable customer services and network evolution.
Similarly, Red Hat showcased its work with Telefónica Spain, which is standardizing on Red Hat OpenShift as a common platform to unify IT workloads and cloud-native network functions. The move to a unified platform is helping Telefónica simplify management of diverse infrastructure environments — enabling both virtualized and cloud-native workloads to operate efficiently together while giving the carrier greater agility to scale 5G and edge services.
Cloud-native scalability and efficiency gains
Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud architecture continues to attract carriers seeking dramatic infrastructure improvements. Telefónica Brazil announced a major modernization of its IT cloud infrastructure, migrating legacy virtual machines to a common Red Hat OpenShift platform. This shift has yielded a 99% reduction in application scaling times and a 95% cut in storage use, bolstering operational responsiveness and reducing resource consumption. Such gains support the operator’s ability to deliver competitive digital services across its extensive subscriber base.
In addition, Vodafone Oman shared news of its ongoing techco transformation with Red Hat solutions, continuing to build out cloud-native architectures that support rapid innovation and sustained 5G network growth.
Read all of our coverage from Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona here.