Orange lined up Usman Javaid (pictured) as its next AI chief, tasking the current chief product and marketing officer of its business unit with delivering on ambitious revenue targets for the technology.
Javaid is scheduled to succeed Steve Jarrett on 1 September, a little over three years after taking on his current post within Orange Business.
Orange is in the throes of implementing a strategy intended to derive more than €600 million in value from AI by 2028. It is also working to expand internal use of the technology and stated implementing agentic iterations would be a key element in Javaid’s remit.
During an Orange Business event in March, Javaid told Mobile World Live past experience in adapting to emerging technologies would serve the company well in the AI era, explaining the focus is on how to employ advances to benefit customers.
Orange credited Jarrett with having laid the foundations of its use of AI and establishing its credentials in the field.
There is a circularity to Orange’s appointment given Javaid began his career with the company in 2005. The executive also racked up experience in various roles held with Vodafone Group and AWS spanning cloud, IoT and network strategy.
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Orange Business highlighted an established presence in the digital health sector as it revealed remote cardiac monitoring service provider MicroPort CardioFlow decided to stick with it for another five years.
An extended deal continues to cover the transmission of clinical health data from devices embedded in patients to healthcare professionals. The information is used to remotely monitor users and guide treatment decisions.
Orange Business explained it provides the IoT platform and secure connectivity for the data, tapping the operator group’s cybersecurity division to test the system and provide relevant reports.
Implanted devices transmit patient information to a bedside device using Bluetooth low-energy, with the information forwarded on demand or at set times. Connections are authenticated using a mobile module and SIM, with data encrypted during transmission.
Orange Business stated roaming SIMs are used to connect patients and healthcare professionals in different geographies.
The operator emphasised remote monitoring can cut the number of hospital visits a person needs to make.
It stated it would work with MicroPort CardioFlow to explore potential connected health developments unlocked by emerging technologies, in particular the possibility for personalised treatments to boost the quality of healthcare provided.
Claire Scotton, VP of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Orange Business, said connectivity “underpins the next generation of remote health monitoring”, enabling MicroPort CardioFlow “to provide even more precise, personalised care for chronic conditions”.
Orange Business highlighted remote health monitoring as a prime example of the need for sovereign data protections, in particular arrangements enabling companies to provide global services while complying with local regulations.
The extension builds on a working relationship spanning more than a decade, Orange Business stated.
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Orange and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) launched a joint laboratory to explore semantic communications, a technology designed to cut data traffic and energy use in future AI-driven networks.
The AI-Native Communications lab will run for five years and develop semantic communications technologies and applications, which prioritise whether the receiver understands the meaning or content of a transmitted message, even when the received data is not exactly identical to what was sent. This marks a shift away from conventional data transmission, where networks aim to reproduce bits perfectly and treat any alteration as an error.
The partners said the approach could reduce the volume of data exchanged across networks, lowering energy consumption and infrastructure requirements. The technology could also support communication between AI agents, which are expected to play a greater role in future network architectures.
The laboratory will also combine research from Orange and CEA to study network evolution, create shared semantic representations between AI models and contribute to future standards work.
Announced at the annual VivaTech event in Paris by Orange CEO Christel Heydemann and CEA general administrator Anne-Isabelle Etienvre, the pair said the initiative forms part of a broader push to strengthen French and European sovereignty over future intelligent network technologies.
Lyse Brillouet, EVP of research at Orange, said the joint laboratory reflects the operator’s commitment to building “the networks of the future: smarter, more sustainable, and natively designed for artificial intelligence”. She added the move was “a key step in reconciling the performance of our infrastructure with the need to reduce our future carbon footprint”.
Meanwhile, Etienvre stated semantic communications marked “a major breakthrough in how future networks will process information”, adding the collaboration aimed to strengthen Europe’s ability to “design and influence technological standards”.
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Orange stepped up ambitions to drive commercial growth for French start-ups, using the annual VivaTech event in Paris to outline a three-pronged strategy focused on procurement, distribution and enterprise integration.
Orange stated it will buy directly from French start-ups where their technology fits its operational and business needs, use its commercial network to connect companies with public and private-sector buyers and integrate select technology into Orange Business’ enterprise catalogue.
The operator said it aims to boost digital sovereignty by tackling long-standing barriers faced by young French companies, including lengthy contracting processes, limited access to large corporate customers, a lack of commercial references and the complexity of scaling technology at pace.
Separately, Orange Ventures, the group’s investment arm, added it would boost funding for start-ups working in AI, cloud, cybersecurity, health and defence as part of a wider digital trust push.
Orange pointed to several companies it has already worked with under the plan, citing successful partnerships with cybersecurity specialist Anozr Way, circular economy player Circular Place, agentic AI developer H Company and process optimisation firm Kerys.
The initiative forms part of the operator’s partnership with French Tech Mission 2030, a government-backed programme that aims to support the country’s start-ups seeking to move beyond pilots and into commercial deployment.
Orange CEO Christel Heydemann (pictured) said France needs start-ups “capable of reaching industrial scale, sustaining their solutions and rapidly winning their markets,” adding Orange aims to use its “purchasing volume”, “commercial strength” and “integration expertise” to help them grow.
Julie Huguet, director of the French Tech Mission, added “access to customers, trusted relays and smoother sales cycles” were “essential” for start-up growth. She said the partnership with Orange could “generate tangible commercial opportunities for our scale-ups and help bring out the future European technology leaders”.
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The iconic coats are due to a mutation not seen in other animals.Orange made a second decisive acquisition move in as many days after completing a buyout of its partner in Spanish joint venture MasOrange.
The French operator detailed the completion of the deal late yesterday (8 June), two days after a move involving the assets of domestic rival SFR.
Orange began its quest to purchase the 50% of MasOrange it did not own from partner Lorca in October 2025 and the process ran relatively smoothly, with a definitive deal made two months later and regulatory clearance secured earlier this year.
MasOrange CEO Meinrad Spenger gains a place on Orange’s executive committee. He said the buyout cements the operator’s foundations and improves its “capacity for investment and innovation”.
Orange intends to refinance MasOrange debt “over time”.
The operator highlighted the acquisition of the remainder of MasOrange as important to a current strategy focused on the theme of trust, while also bolstering its position in Spain, its second-largest market in Europe.
“It paves the way for accelerated industrial, operational and commercial synergies”, CEO Christel Heydemann said.
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French operators Bouygues Telecom, Free-Iliad Group and Orange reached a deal with Altice France to acquire SFR for a total enterprise value of €20.4 billion, sparking a major shake-up of the country’s telecoms sector.
The three would-be acquirers signed a memorandum of understanding with Altice France less than two months after entering into exclusive talks. An initial offer of €17 billion was rejected in October 2025.
Terms of the proposed deal remained unchanged from what was laid out in April, with Bouygues taking a 42% stake, Free-Iliad 31% and Orange 27%.
SFR’s consumer mobile and broadband units will be carved up between the consortium, with Bouygues to take control of the B2B segment.
With the deal expected to be subject to intense national and European regulation, breakup fees of between €100 million and €2 billion have been agreed, depending on the reason for any collapse and timing of termination of the deal.
Regulatory scrutiny is likely to be fierce because the transaction will reduce the number of players in the market from four to three, though there are signs traditional European regulatory resistance to deals which do so are beginning to lessen and the European Commission indicated an easing of corporate merger rules earlier this year.
The companies stated the proposed transaction would create value for all stakeholders, and ensure continued development of France’s infrastructure and digital ecosystem.
Combining SFR’s assets “is expected to generate significant synergies”, benefitting consumers and the overall digital ecosystem by bolstering the capacity to invest.
A consultation period will now be opened with relevant employee representative bodies. Definitive legal documents are expected to be signed in the second half of 2026 with completion expected in the second half of 2027, following regulatory clearance.
Big challenge
Kester Mann, director of consumer and connectivity at CCS Insight, believes the deal paves the way for the greatest shake-up in the French telecoms sector since the arrival of Iliad in 2012.
“The agreement appears a successful outcome for all parties. Bouygues, Orange and Iliad each gain important new assets in their pursuit for greater scale, while eliminating a major rival will reduce the competitive intensity of the market.”
He warned the biggest challenge would be to convince competition authorities the deal is positive for the French market.
“Several years ago, this would have felt like a herculean task. But the regulatory tide has steadily been turning favour of consolidation in Europe following recent deals approved in the UK and Spain. Although a lengthy probe is likely, it is surely odds-on to get the green light,” he added.
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Orange Business secured a deal to supply French public hospital group GHT Rouen Coeur de Seine with a generative AI (genAI) platform, equipping 15,000 health professionals across its network with secure sovereign AI tools.
The French operator’s enterprise unit will deploy Live Intelligence, its enterprise genAI platform, across the hospital group to provide a controlled alternative to unverified public AI tools. It stated the long-term partnership spans infrastructure, strategy and operational support.
Rouen University Hospital, the group’s support entity, selected the platform to govern AI usage and ensure secure deployment across its workforce. Orange Business said the platform intends to support and upskill staff across clinical, administrative and technical roles, creating a common framework for genAI training and responsible use.
The platform is hosted in France and can be connected to the hospital group’s information systems, with early use cases already in play. Research teams at Rouen University Hospital are using genAI to speed up grant applications, cutting the process timeframe from three weeks to two days. The operator added sourcing requests involving specifications and evaluation criteria could be reduced from two weeks to one day.
As part of the deal, the partners also plan to develop a long-term innovation programme with other university hospitals to build AI use cases relevant to the wider healthcare sector.
Claire Scotton, VP of healthcare and life sciences at Orange Business, said some hospital staff feel they have become “‘data managers’ as much as healthcare professionals”, adding the platform aims to help them “reclaim time to focus on what truly matters: patient care, meaningful work, and collaboration”.
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Orange deepened its push into the travel eSIM market through a global distribution deal with online travel agency Trip.com, offering mobile connectivity at the point of travel booking as demand for roaming services grows.
Orange Travel, an Orange Group subsidiary, stated the partnership will enable Trip.com users to buy Orange Travel eSIM packages directly on the agency platform, allowing customers to arrange connectivity before departure, pay in local currency and activate the eSIM upon arrival.
Trip.com customers will be able to buy packages covering France, Italy, Spain, the UK and Switzerland, with the partners aiming to target key European tourist markets. The pair noted the region accounts for more than 50 per cent of global tourist arrivals, led by France and Spain.
The packages on offer include calls, texts and data across 20GB, 50GB and 100GB options, with validity periods of ranging from a week to 30 days. Prices start at €8.99.
Orange Travel highlighted its eSIM services are supported by the Orange Group’s network reach, including connectivity in more than 200 destinations and 700 roaming agreements worldwide.
Orange Travel CEO Frederic Blehaut said the agreement demonstrates its “commitment to accelerating our growth in Asia and internationally through strategic partnerships”, adding the subsidiary offers “European eSIMs with a recognised quality of service backed by the Orange Group’s know-how”.
Chase Liu, general manager of international attractions and tours business at Trip.com Group, added: “With tailor-made offers and packages easily accessible on our platform, our customers can enjoy enhanced connectivity and greater convenience when they travel in this region.”
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