The content team at Channel Partners tracks stories of interest to the technology advisor and wider channel communities. Anyone selling communication and connectivity solutions will want to stay abreast of these developing stories or catch up on ones they have missed. All links are valid as of July 1.

AWS Creates $1B Forward Deployed Engineering AI Unit

Struggling to go AI-native? Amazon Web Services may have the billion-dollar answer. AWS said it is investing $1 billion on a new Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) organization to help enterprises embed AI into their operations. The new initiative answers a growing enterprise need as businesses compete to deploy production-ready agentic AI systems that transform business processes and become truly AI-native. Read the AI Magazine story.

TPx Enters Bankruptcy to Clear $1.1B in Debt

Managed services provider TPx filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas on Saturday, seeking to wipe $1.1 billion in debt, according to court documents. Potential bidders have until Aug. 7 to make an offer to buy all or some of TPx’s assets — with a “stalking horse” bidder setting the minimum price. Read the Channel Dive story.

SpaceX, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, EchoStar Win AWS-3 Spectrum

U.S. mobile's Big Three of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, along with SpaceX and EchoStar, were among the winning bidders of AWS-3 spectrum auction. The FCC revealed those winners three days after announcing that the AWS-3 auction – essentially a reauction of EchoStar/Dish holdings – drew winning bids exceeding $3.5 billion over 72 rounds. That was enough to ensure EchoStar was not on the hook to pay a penalty to the FCC if total bids fell below the $2.9 billion threshold. Read the Light Reading story.

TD Synnex CEO Anticipates Shift to On-Premises Compute

Token costs may drive enterprises to invest in on-premises infrastructure for AI workloads, TD Synnex CEO Patrick Zammit said Thursday during the technology distributor’s Q2 2026 earnings call. “Hardware is becoming a very interesting category again and could be poised for very interesting growth,” Zammit said. “The cost of tokens could have a very positive impact on on-premises hardware, both in the data center but also at the edge.” TD Synnex had a record quarter, as gross billings increased 33% year over year to $28.9 billion, with the company’s channel-focused distribution division delivering $23.4 billion. Read the Channel Dive story.

Comcast-NBCU/Sky Split not a Step Toward Strategic M&A

Comcast's decision to spin NBCUniversal and Sky into a separate, publicly traded company will no doubt lead to speculation about whether the move could clear the way for bigger, future deals. Will it lead to a merger of Comcast and Charter Communications, a combo that just might be able to get through the regulatory wringer? Comcast chairman Brian Roberts said investors should "absolutely not" think about the proposed transaction as a step toward strategic transactions for either company over time. See the Light Reading story.

SpaceX, Charter Discussed U.S. Mobile Phone Partnership

SpaceX and Charter Communications have held executive-level talks about partnering on a consumer mobile phone offering, according to people familiar with the matter. Charter, the largest home internet provider in the U.S., could run some of SpaceX’s phone traffic through its ground-based internet infrastructure, much as it does with its Spectrum Mobile offering presently, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the discussions are private. Read the Bloomberg story.

2026 Telecom M&A Tracker

Fierce Network tracks 2026 tech and telecom transactions. The latest list includes Verizon and BT’s merger of their international enterprise businesses into a new global company, and Rocket Lab’s $8 billion acquisition of Iridium Communications. Read about the deals on Fierce Network.

Anthropic’s Claude Models Available in Microsoft Foundry

Anthropic made its suite of Claude models available in Microsoft Foundry on Azure, expanding enterprise access to its models for building autonomous AI agents. The vendors said Azure-native businesses will now have greater access to building domain-specific AI agents -- increasingly important as companies demand more autonomous, intelligent technologies. The rollout also marks the first time Anthropic has used Nvidia hardware. Read the AI Business story.

Qualcomm, OpenAI, IBM Target AI Infrastructure Efficiency

Three major AI infrastructure vendors advanced plans to build more efficient AI data centers amid rising costs and energy-efficiency concerns in the industry, but it remains to be seen when cost savings will materialize for downstream customers. Read the TechTarget story.