Huawei Presents Two Key Tech Innovation Directions to Lead Intelligent Transformation
[Istanbul, Türkiye, November 4, 2024] At the Global Mobile Broadband Forum 2024 (MBBF 2024), industry leaders, ecosystem players, and operators from around the globe attended the Mobile AI Foundation Network Summit held by Huawei to discuss popular mobile AI applications, their development trends and network connection requirements, as well as the key characteristics of foundation networks and evolution directions of target networks for mobile AI. Following the discussion, Huawei presented two key technological innovation directions for mobile AI foundation networks.
Rapid technological advancements are driving more industries to adopt AI, or even put it right at the heart of what they do. In his opening speech at the summit, Dang Wenshuan, Huawei's Chief Strategy Architect, remarked: "Enterprises that pursue intelligent transformation will have to have six distinct capabilities that we call the six A's: an Adaptive User Experience, Auto-Evolving Products, Autonomous Operations, an Augmented Workforce, All-Connected Resources, and AI-Native Infrastructure. As operators move towards comprehensive integration of intelligence, they must upgrade their network infrastructure to create new value. Leading operators who pursue better intelligent capabilities in the mobile AI era have strategized to evolve all frequency bands to 5.5G, vowing to improve uplink speeds and spectral efficiency tenfold and boost network coverage by 10 dB."
Dang Wenshuan, Huawei's Chief Strategy Architect, delivering an opening speech
At the summit, speakers from GSMA, ITU, and UISEE noted that mobile AI services are developing faster than ever, driven by ubiquitous mobile networks that offer superior experience. As mobile AI is merging with 5.5G, mobile networks will have to provide stronger capabilities, such as larger uplink and lower latency, in order to connect a wider array of objects, carry a greater variety of content, and adapt to new changes in user service models. The speakers called for ongoing improvement of network capabilities to better support AI applications and services, enable wider adoption of AI, and drive harmonious growth of the mobile and AI industries.
During the summit, world-leading operators Vodafone Türkiye, Telefónica Group, Zain KSA, and VEON Group shared insights on network construction and monetization in the mobile AI era. They highlighted the crucial role of networks in supporting the emergence of mobile AI applications. They emphasized that the future of mobile AI hinges on 5.5G networks and advocated for a "Networks for AI" approach. The operators also identified network construction standards for the mobile AI era: Networks must deliver an uplink speed of 20 Mbps and a latency of 20 ms to users everywhere, not just in traditionally well-served urban centers, in order to support human-level AI interactions. As for monetization, the operators proposed a shift from single-dimensional traffic monetization to multi-dimensional experience monetization to maximize the value of networks.
Fang Xiang, Vice President of Huawei Wireless Network Product Line, echoed the operators' insights in a keynote speech titled "Establishing Mobile AI Foundation Network". Fang recognized the value of mobile AI in transforming daily life and connectivity, and elaborated on what other speakers had said about the network requirements of mobile AI — 20 Mbps uplink and 20 ms latency, or "20-20" for short. He explained that there is a common need for 20 Mbps uplink as mobile AI applications are shifting from chatbots and work assistants which carry out non-real-time interactions to personal assistant agents which carry out real-time interactions. He also said that a shift away from once-ubiquitous touch controls to a paradigm in which users can interact with AI terminals through touch, voice, gestures, or other modalities is driving the demand for 20 ms latency.
Fang Xiang, Vice President of Huawei Wireless Network Product Line, delivering a keynote speech
To meet the "20-20" network requirements, Huawei proposed two directions for technological evolution: vertical and horizontal. Vertically, Huawei's GigaBand solution, which adapts networks to services and terminals using Intelligent AIR and Intelligent Gear, has resulted in comprehensive improvements to uplink and downlink user experience. Intelligent AIR supports pooling of all 4G and 5G resources and optimizes the conventional cell-level resource scheduling with resource-block-level scheduling, vastly boosting air interface resource utilization. Meanwhile, Intelligent Gear implements multi-dimensional scheduling of air interface resources to guarantee user service experience, enabling smooth and real-time interactions between humans and mobile AI machines.
Horizontally, Huawei's enhanced multi-antenna technology enables greater simplicity, energy efficiency, and system capacity than older solutions. Uplink capabilities have been especially improved. Huawei's M-Receiver technology enhances uplink coverage and improves the pairing efficiency of uplink single-user MIMO (SU-MIMO), achieving a ubiquitous uplink speed of 20 Mbps.
Huawei's next-generation GigaGreen RF module series features both of these evolution directions. It significantly improves the real-time service experience of mobile AI applications and meets multi-dimensional experience requirements, including large uplink, low latency, and wide coverage. By leveraging GigaGreen RF modules, operators can build robust foundation networks and seize new opportunities brought by mobile AI.
