SEATTLE: Microsoft has confirmed it has struck a deal to buy telecommunications virtualisation specialist Affirmed Networks for an undisclosed sum to take on Amazon with plans to create a “global 5G ecosystem”.

Affirmed Networks offers fully virtualised services to let mobile network operators run 4G and 5G networks from the cloud, with automated service provisioning, real-time analytics and network slicing.

The move comes hot on the heels of rival AWS’s “Wavelength” launch: a project by Verizon, Vodafone, South Korea’s SK Telecom, and Japan’s KDDI, to bring AWS’s compute and storage services “to the edge of 5G networks”.