Yang Chaobin, Huawei’s Board Member and President of ICT Products and Solutions, delivered a keynote speech today at the Global MBB Forum 2024, saying, “The upcoming mobile AI era will create huge opportunities for the mobile industry and profoundly shape the decade to come. Evolving 5.5G technology will be the key to unleashing the potential of mobile AI. Huawei looks forward to collaborating with all industry partners to evolve 5.5G and solidify the foundation of the mobile AI era. Together, we can help society and industry go intelligent.”
According to Yang, two trends have emerged thanks to rapidly evolving 5.5G and AI technologies that will reshape industry and usher in an “era of mobile AI”. The first trend he calls “Mobile going AI”, where mobile internet services are being transformed by new service and business models. The second trend is “AI going Mobile”, where enormous business opportunities are being unlocked by new mobile services like smart vehicles and robots. These developments, he claims, are creating new momentum and opportunities for both society and the mobile industry.
Huawei says these trends will influence the ICT industry in three specific ways. First, AI agents for individuals will reshape mobile internet services such that everyone has a personal smart assistant, which means AI agent networks will need to support real-time services. Second, smart driving will transform mobility by turning vehicles into flexible and smart spaces, which means smart vehicle networks will need to deliver high uplink speeds. Third, generalized embodied intelligence will make its way into different scenarios to unlock new productivity and a 10 billion-unit AI-robot market, which means future robotics networks will need comprehensively higher capabilities.
Yang explained that 5.5G networks can support the diversified connections, experiences, and services that are needed to address these new requirements coming from AI agents, smart vehicles, and embodied intelligence as the networks drive innovation and evolution in five key areas:
- First, 5.5G can address diversified experience requirements by providing high-bandwidth networks. As users increasingly require diversified experiences, sub-100 GHz bands can be integrated on demand to flexibly deliver the network capabilities needed for superior multi-factor experiences. “0 Bit 0 Watt” technology can also be used to enable superior energy efficiency.
- Second, 5.5G can be used to optimize device TCO as it enables a single network to integrate all-scenario IoT connections. RedCap and passive IoT technologies are lowering the cost of IoT, and 5.5G is needed to maximize the number of connections that can be simultaneously supported. Upgraded network capabilities are also needed to empower devices and bring IoT connections everywhere.
- Third, 5.5G can provide unified portals that support differentiated experience assurance and monetization, something that carriers will need to cope with increasingly diverse service requirements. 5.5G core networks have the capacity to deliver the user-, service-, and network-awareness capabilities needed for differentiated experience-based monetization.
- Fourth, 5.5G can provide a unified service portal that makes mobile AI more affordable and supports diversified smart services. Carriers will need the native AI service portal that 5.5G core networks provide to share network capabilities with third parties. This will make smart services available on more affordable mobile devices.
- Fifth, 5.5G can use the Telecom Foundation Model to enable high-level network autonomy and realize the concept of “0 Touch, 0 Wait, 0 Fault”. The Telecom Foundation Model enables high-level autonomous networks with full-stack intelligence by providing two types of applications—copilots and agents—and three types of digital experts. This will be a new trend in network operations.
The 15th Global Mobile Broadband Forum, with a tagline of “5.5G Leads Mobile AI Era”, runs from October 30 to 31 in Istanbul, Türkiye. It will be hosted by Huawei with support from our industry partners GSMA and GTI. Together with operators, vertical industry leaders, and ecosystem partners, we will share the industry’s latest advancements and explore new opportunities. Industry stakeholders will discuss how to achieve 5.5G business success in the Mobile AI era, and leverage the success of 5G to attain even greater achievements with 5.5G.
