Telecom
Zoho Unveils Homegrown Server, Takes Bold Step Toward Tech Independence
Zoho Corporation, a global technology company and parent company of Zoho and ManageEngine, announced the launch of Nathu La, a designed-in-house server and a pivotal step in the company’s journey towards building its full technology stack, from the hardware layer to software applications.
Zoho
With Nathu La, Zoho has achieved equivalent performance with 12-18% lower power consumption and 20-30% lower total cost of ownership (TCO), thereby reducing inference costs. The Nathu La server, comprising Intel® Xeon® 6 processors, was developed collaboratively with Intel, leveraging their enablement capabilities and technical expertise.
“Zoho Corporation has invested in building its own technology stack from the ground up over the last three decades. The Nathu La server launch is in line with that goal,” said Kehinde Ogundare, Country Head, Zoho Nigeria.
“With our strategy of using contextual, right-sized models, running on our own platform, on our own servers, in our own data centres, we are compounding the benefits accrued from owning and operating our entire technology stack.
“This ensures that our solutions are more sustainable and accessible for businesses. These long-term R&D investments we are making at every layer of the stack are aimed at delivering customer value.”
Building the Full Technology Stack
The design philosophy behind Nathu La is rooted in the Open Compute Project (OCP), emphasising modularity, thermal efficiency, and ease of maintenance. This enables Zoho’s data centres to significantly reduce total cost of ownership and power consumption.
Zoho plans to host its applications on the Nathu La server platform, enabling the company to optimise the full software-hardware stack for its specific workloads, reduce costs, improve performance, and strengthen data governance for its global customers. This will also help bring down inference costs for Zoho’s AI usage.
Developed Hardware Engineering Talent
In 2020, Zoho established a small R&D team in Nagpur, a Tier 2 town in India, focused on projects such as server design and systems engineering. Members of the Nathu La R&D team include hires from SETU – short for Student’s Engagement for Transformative Upskilling – an initiative designed to build a pipeline of industry-ready engineers, with a focus on advanced learning in Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM).
The initiative directly addresses the growing need for stronger foundational engineering skills in an era increasingly influenced by AI-assisted development. By prioritising hands-on innovation and first-principles problem-solving, SETU helps cultivate deeper research capabilities, creativity, and applied engineering expertise. To date, over 300 students have been trained through the programme, some of whom have joined Zoho.
What’s Inside
The Nathu La server motherboard and chassis platform is the result of five years of R&D across hardware, firmware, and systems management. Based on Intel® Xeon® 6 Processors, the server is designed to optimise performance for virtualisation (VM), High Performance Computing (HPC), AI inference, and storage applications. This results in improved performance of Zoho applications for end users.
The server features customised power delivery subsystems, an in-house DC-SCM (Data Centre Secure Control Module) design, and modular chassis options compatible with diverse end-user environments, offering flexibility across deployment types.
All modular components – including the DC-SCM and NIC (Network Interface Card) – were designed in-house by Zoho’s hardware engineering team and assembled through electronics manufacturing partners, enabling tighter integration and quality control across the platform. Over five patents have been filed covering advanced thermal management and cost-optimised server architecture designs.
Moving Towards Technological Sovereignty
Nathu La is engineered with hardware-rooted security at every layer of the stack. The platform’s indigenous IP-driven approach reduces dependency on external entities for security audits, firmware updates, and licensing continuity.
The solution aligns with open-source software principles and reflects Zoho’s broader commitment to building sustainable, secure, and scalable digital infrastructure. It also supports the growing global focus on digital sovereignty, local innovation ecosystems, and high-performance computing capabilities.
Clydestone Ghana Plc has filed a writ of summons and statement of claim against MTN Ghana, MTN Group Limited and Mobile Money Fintech Limited, alleging unauthorized use of its intellectual property.
The company announced the court action at the Ghana Stock Exchange, confirming proceedings in the Commercial Division of the High Court of Ghana.
The case relates to work commissioned in 2007 that Clydestone alleges was later used without authorisation or compensation.
Clydestone said the claim involves proprietary intellectual property, confidential commercial information and operational methodology developed during the engagement. The company is seeking declarations, damages and equitable remedies.
In a statement, Clydestone said MTN Ghana engaged it in 2007 to develop a commercial and operational framework for a mobile money business.
“The work was developed and delivered by the company’s founder and Group CEO, Paul Jacquaye, and included a full mobile money ecosystem covering the commercial model, operational architecture, implementation methodology and business case.”
Clydestone said the work was commissioned on the understanding that a non-disclosure agreement and memorandum of understanding would be signed.
It alleges these agreements were not finalised despite repeated requests.
The company further alleges MTN Ghana later used its proprietary work and methodology without authorisation or compensation, including in MTN Mobile Money Ghana and other markets.
Clydestone said the alleged use has continued since the launch of MTN Mobile Money Ghana in 2009.
“The wrongful use of that work has been ongoing since 2009. What has changed is the availability of independently verifiable information that documents its scale and commercial significance,” the company said.
It cited the GSMA State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2026 and MTN Ghana’s 2025 annual report as evidence of the platform’s scale.
According to Clydestone, the reports show approximately 19.3 million active users and annual revenue of about GHS 6.0 billion ($516m).
The company said it reviewed its records following these publications and concluded there were sufficient grounds to initiate legal proceedings.
It added that it has received no payment or acknowledgement for the work since December 2007, and that pre-action correspondence in 2026 received no substantive response.
“The Board of Directors has unanimously authorised the commencement of these proceedings,” the company said.
Jacquaye said: “This case is about accountability for commissioned intellectual property.
“When independent publications in 2025 and 2026 revealed the scale of the mobile money business, we reviewed all documentation relating to the original engagement and concluded these proceedings were necessary.”
MTN Group Limited, named as a defendant, had not commented at the time of publication.
In a development that underscores the fragile state of Nigeria’s telecommunications grid, an incident of infrastructure vandalism in Delta State has severely disrupted network connectivity, leaving thousands of subscribers stranded.
The breach, where a robber attacked the sites, occurred at an IHS-managed telecom node in the ASB region on July 8, 2026, immediately knocking 33 base stations offline across 2G, 3G, and 4G spectrums.
The situation in the region escalated drastically by morning when a separate fibre-optic cable cut severed primary transmission lines. Because the compromised node serves as a critical fibre convergence point, the secondary fibre cut triggered a cascading failure.
This secondary disruption ballooned the number of dark sites from 33 to 103, temporarily paralysing digital communications, banking, and commerce in the affected communities.
Industry sources reveal that the financial and logistical toll of such incidents is becoming unsustainable for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs).
Currently, network providers are utilising 20 per cent more spare parts than initially budgeted for the fiscal year.
This unpredictable depletion of technical reserves has stripped operators of their supply buffers, making inventory management and financial forecasting increasingly difficult for telecom executives.
Consequently, engineering teams have been forced to cannibalise materials originally designated for network expansion and new site rollouts just to perform emergency restorations on the damaged sites.
This diversion of resources significantly delays the rollout of new infrastructure, stifling the nation’s broader broadband penetration targets and stalling anticipated revenue generation for the telecom companies.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) recently noted an average of 1,744 weekly attacks on telecom infrastructure nationwide, including over 1,100 fibre cuts.
As operators endure protracted back-and-forth negotiations with insurance firms to cover these sudden hardware losses, stakeholders are intensifying calls for the strict enforcement of the Federal Government’s recent designation of telecom assets as Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) to safeguard Quality of Service (QoS).
Viral rumors about a “Tesla Pi Phone” a new phone, being developed by Elon Musk, CEO and largest shareholder of Tesla and SpaceX, are entirely fake.
AI Generated Tesla Pi Phone and Elon Musk
Instead, the tech giant said on Monday it has filed an application with the US Federal Communications Commission for permission to deploy the constellation by 2028.
It said the system would provide voice, messaging, data and emergency services.
A quick fact-check revealed that Tesla Inc. has never manufactured, developed, or released a smartphone.
Videos and articles claiming a release (often priced between $150 and $800 with solar charging or satellite-only connections) rely on AI-generated concept art and recycled internet hoaxes dating back to 2021.
Musk has only mentioned a phone in hypothetical remarks, stating Tesla would build one only if major app stores completely blocked or censored essential apps like X (formerly Twitter).
On Monday however, his company said that “Amazon looks forward to delivering on the promise of D2D [direct-to-device] connectivity, including to the millions of people living, travelling and working in places beyond the reach of existing networks today,”
The filing is the first step from Amazon into satellite mobile connections, which has until now been dominated by SpaceX’s Starlink service.
Musk’s group has signed partnerships with existing operators such as T-Mobile US and the UK’s Virgin Media O2 to provide phone services for customers where their conventional networks do not reach.
Starlink operates across more than 150 countries, offering high-speed internet connections through its constellation of satellites.
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