News

Ooredoo Qatar’s 5G+ Network Is Built For Machines As Much As People

Built on 5G Standalone and 5G Advanced, the upgrade lays the groundwork for Qatar’s 2030 digital ambitions.

Published

3 weeks ago

October 16, 2026

ooredoo qatar's 5g+ network is built for machines as much as people

Ooredoo Qatar has launched what it calls the country’s first 5G+ mobile network. Customers get faster connections, but much of what the operator is promising is aimed at machines.

5G+ isn’t a new generation of mobile technology so much as a layering of upgrades, building on 5G Standalone and 5G Advanced. The result is the familiar trio of higher speeds, greater capacity and lower latency.

For consumers, Ooredoo promises smoother streaming, more responsive gaming and steadier connections on the move. The service is commercially available through mobile broadband in 5G+ coverage areas, and the operator is aiming it at campers during the camping season. The network has been deployed at locations across Qatar, but the announcement doesn’t name them, say whether smartphone plans are included or put figures on the speed and latency gains.

The business case is more detailed: Greater capacity lets more devices connect and exchange data efficiently, while shorter response times support real-time equipment monitoring and automated processes. Network slicing tailors connectivity to specific uses, and 5G Advanced combined with edge computing targets mission-critical applications that require rapid responses. Expanded IoT capabilities cover industrial sensors, asset trackers and utility meters, the building blocks for automation and future smart city services. The company also cites AI-enabled services and complex digital workloads.

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“With the 5G+ network, we are enhancing everyday digital experiences for our consumers, enabling innovation, and strengthening the competitiveness of businesses across the country,” said Sheikh Ali bin Jabor bin Mohammad Al Thani, chief executive officer of Ooredoo Qatar.

“From launching the world’s first 5G network in 2018 to deploying Qatar’s first 5G Standalone core network, we have consistently advanced connectivity,” he added.

Ooredoo ties the rollout to Qatar National Vision 2030 and the Digital Agenda 2030, framing it as part of the country’s effort to strengthen its position as a leading regional digital hub. For that ambition, the devices that matter most may be the ones without screens.

News

ESET Bets On Specialized Security AI At 0.5% The Training Cost

ESET says NeoCortex can estimate an attacker’s next move, with a kill switch and human oversight built in to keep it from going rogue.

Published

2 days ago

November 4, 2026

Dana Saadeh

eset bets on specialized security ai at 0.5% the training cost

A sign-in anomaly, a suspicious process launch and an unusual connection may look harmless alone. Together, they can describe an intrusion that is hard for security to teams to piece together.

To solve that problem, ESET announced ESET NeoCortex on November 4, 2026: a specialized foundational AI model for cybersecurity. It powers ESET LiveCortex, available within the ESET PROTECT Platform, which connects fragmented security signals and turns them into actionable incidents.

Filtering is the main selling point, with LiveCortex processing billions of raw telemetry events daily, and just 0.00111% of them contributing to incidents presented to customers. The aim is less alert fatigue and more analyst time spent on threats that matter.

NeoCortex is built on world-model architecture, learning how digital environments behave and how events relate. ESET says that lets it reconstruct missing incident context, recognize similar past cases and estimate an attacker’s likely next step – what the company calls “minus-one-day defense,” a chance to intervene before the next stage unfolds. ESET points to Black October, the week leading up to October 25, 2026, when critical security issues affecting PHP, Linux, GitLab and other key systems demanded rapid, prioritized responses, as the kind of moment where that context matters.

ESET’s internal research also suggests a specialized model like NeoCortex can be trained at up to 200 times lower cost than a large general reasoning model, while delivering more accurate, defense-focused results. The company credits optimized training, a focus on cybersecurity vocabulary, lower computing requirements and privately owned hardware.

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“AI is accelerating both cyberattacks and cyberdefenses. With ESET NeoCortex, we are applying our AI investment to develop specialized foundational cybersecurity intelligence that remains under our control and strengthens, rather than replaces, human expertise,” said Juraj Malcho, Chief Technology Officer at ESET.

As part of the design, NeoCortex forms part of a layered architecture combining specialized models, deterministic controls, correlation logic, validation, auditability and expert human oversight. Safeguards include restricted sandboxes, read-only tools, continuous monitoring, defined usage and token limits, a kill switch and human oversight of critical response decisions. The model is also developed and self-hosted on ESET’s own infrastructure, which the company says reduces exposure to shifts among third-party AI providers, including commercial and geopolitical ones.