BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 27, 2024 -- At MWC Barcelona 2024, Li Peng, Huawei's Corporate Senior Vice President and President of ICT Sales & Service, delivered a keynote on the strategic new opportunities that will be open to the ICT industry in an intelligent world.

"We're rapidly approaching an intelligent world," said Li. "As the demands on networks have increased, 5.5G has become a key step on the path to the intelligent world. 5.5G is expected to enter commercial use in 2024. So, let's build today's networks for tomorrow's applications to advance the intelligent world."

Embarking on the journey of 5.5G commercialization

Li explained that, over the past 20 years, informatization and digitalization have brought opportunities worth trillions of dollars for the ICT industry. Higher network requirements are needed for this intelligent world, such as uplink ultra-broadband, real-time broadband communication, and full-scenario IoT. This has driven the rapid evolution to 5.5G which will be able to enable innovative application scenarios and business models. By 2030, the intelligent economy is expected to be worth more than 18.8 trillion dollars, bringing a new wave of opportunities for the industry.

In China, the Middle East, and Europe, leading carriers have already verified advanced 5.5G capabilities on commercial networks. Their tests cover a wide range of scenarios, including smart connections for people, homes, vehicles, and stadiums. Furthermore, more and more 10-gigabit smart cities powered by 5.5G are popping up in locations worldwide.

At this year's MWC, Huawei is releasing a full series of 5.5G products and solutions for a wide range of different scenarios, along with the industry's first Telecom Foundation Model. This model will help carriers maximize the value of their networks, especially in areas like guaranteed network experience and automated O&M.

As evolving network technology continues to redefine information and value streams, and unleashes the power of ubiquitous connectivity, we will soon find ourselves in a fully intelligent world.

Redefining information streams: AI-powered content is driving a surge in new data traffic

Intelligent technologies are developing quickly and intelligent applications have become increasingly prevalent. This has created new opportunities for industries.

In terms of information streams, generative AI is already powering new types of connected objects and scenarios, like digital humans and intelligent cars. These new scenarios require better infrastructure, including new models for cooperative storage and computing between cloud, edge, and device. AIGC will power the creation of over 100 billion gigabytes of data, and drive over one trillion gigabytes of data traffic. Huawei predicts that, in 2026 alone, AI will be used to produce over 250 billion images and 70 million videos, completely redefining the world's approach to content creation.

Redefining value streams: Monetizing mobile services beyond connectivity

As the ICT industry sees more innovation in smart applications, demand for a reliable network experience across multiple dimensions will grow. In particular, guaranteed uplink speed, QoS, and latency will be critical to meet the diverse needs of consumers and industry customers. This will present carriers with incredible new growth opportunities, opening up new value streams worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

One Chinese carrier, for example, has launched a 5G livestream package to provide guaranteed uplink for seamless live streaming. This new service offering helped the carrier increase ARPU by more than 70%.

In the transport sector, another carrier's 5G New Calling services provide accurate real-time positioning and interaction mid-call for applications like car insurance claims. This enables car owners to complete one-stop insurance claim filing, on-site survey, and claim settlement in the event of a traffic accident. This new type of service has helped the carrier successfully monetize the B2B2C market.

Unleashing the power of ubiquitous connectivity: Creating new value for all industries

High-quality 5G network connectivity is helping carriers connect more people with more things at anytime, anywhere. Cloud phones are a great example. With greater bandwidth and lower latency, consumers can play the most compute-intensive online games and use the most advanced workplace applications far beyond the limitations of local device storage and processing power.

Advanced technologies like wide-area IoT are also changing the game for industrial applications. With a 10-fold increase in connection density and precision, the ICT sector can meet the connectivity needs of any industrial scenario, from smart grids to manufacturing, storage, and logistics.

Pioneers are paying the way towards the intelligent world. Li Peng closed out by calling on the industry to embrace 5.5G and build a solid ICT foundation for a more prosperous intelligent world.

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