Huawei CEO David Wang discusses why advanced ultra-fast broadband architecture will pave the way for a total intelligence strategy at the 10th UBBF Forum in Istanbul on 1 November 2024.
Huawei Council and Chairman of the ICT Infrastructure Board and Executive Director David Wang delivers a keynote speech titled “Advanced Ultra-High Speed Broadband Architecture Paves the Way for Total Intelligence Strategy at the recent UBBF Forum in Istanbul.
Wang unpacks just what Huawei’s Strategy for Total Intelligence means.
“We propose a new direction for the concerted development of ultra-fast broadband networks and artificial intelligence to help the industry reach the smart world faster – technological innovation and business incubation,” says Wang.
According to Wang, widespread commercial adoption of AI is accelerating, new applications for personal use and the efficiency of smart enterprises and homes are revolutionizing many markets, and are driving network upgrades, in terms of capacity, latency in the network and architecture.
“We focus on two areas: UBB for AI and AI for UBB. The innovation we do under the UBB umbrella of AI is based on ultra-large bandwidth, low latency and network architecture. The network capability improvements we have achieved support the development of high-quality AI that will help telcos achieve business growth. This innovation also focuses on AI for ultra-fast broadband. We apply AI to networks to improve the network experience, accelerate service provision, and simplify the operation and management of the Network. This helps telcos to build highly autonomous networks,” says Wang.
Last year, Huawei launched its All Intelligence strategy to “show how to connect all things, model all apps, and calculate all decisions”. Huawei claims to offer a leading digital and intelligent infrastructure that provides computing, storage, and transmission power to the industry.
Wang says that Huawei is also using its Pangu models to create industry-specific advanced models, with the aim of supporting a wide range of models and applications, and helping customers from various industries pursue intelligent transformation.
As a critical infrastructure, ultra-fast broadband networks provide this kind of power to help other industries become digital and smart more easily. For this purpose, Huawei advocates two development paths for ultra-fast broadband (UBB) networks: “UBB for AI” and “AI for UBB”.
UBB for AI: High-Quality AI Development
5.5G ultra-fast broadband integrates technological innovation into multiple network layers to support AI requirements.
For data center networks, Huawei is introducing Dragonfly+ Topology architecture and new DC-OXC technologies that help build computing centers at scale.
For data center interconnection (DCI) networks, Huawei uses a number of technologies such as 800G IP+ Optical, flexible IP service flow level scheduling, and lossless transportation to achieve more efficient use of computing power across data centers.
For data center access (DCA) networks, Huawei claims that its OXC Mesh network is capable of significantly reducing latency in the network. Its Wi-Fi 7 and50G PON technologies can provide access to 10GB everywhere, which is a requirement for the widespread adoption of AI by end users. In addition, FTTR technology From Huawei is already used to create “smart centers” and enable smart applications for many homes.
Huawei’s Xinghe security gateway and hybrid ASON networks also ensure flexibility across end-to-end networks for AI application communications.
According to Wang, these innovations significantly improve bandwidth, latency, availability, and network capabilities at scale and will help telcos stand out in this smart age.
AI for UBB: Highly autonomous networks
Ultra-fast broadband networks are also getting bigger and dealing with more complex scenarios, prompting telcos to look for new ways to improve network operation and management efficiency and independence. Wang says that a promising way currently being explored is to integrate AI directly into networks.
“Huawei has built an AI-powered operation and management architecture for high-speed broadband networks based on digital twins and its Telecom Foundation Model AI model. This architecture enables the creation of intelligent, role-oriented robotic assistants and scenario-specific agents who automate on-site processes, maintenance and remote optimization, which is essential for evolution into Level 4 autonomous driving networks,” says Wang.
Several leading telecom companies have successfully improved the efficiency of operating and managing their network by working with Huawei to apply this architecture to commercial usage scenarios.
According to Wang, for home broadband, self-driving networks can support autonomous network optimization to ensure quality user experiences, reducing the rate of customer loss by 57%.
For transport networks, efficient network planning and service deployment is critical.
Autonomous driving networks may support self-service planning and deployment in accordance with SLAs, rather than manual planning. This may reduce service provision times from one month to one day.
As for IP network maintenance, identifying faults has always been a challenge. Wang claims that autonomous driving networks may enable virtual employees to support troubleshooting, reducing network troubleshooting times by 50%.
Wang says that the entire ultra-fast broadband (UBB) industry should actively embrace the intelligent era by pursuing innovation in 5.5G ultra-fast broadband network technologies to gain long-term competitiveness.
He also called for a new business incubator for new industry-wide smart services, as well as new network capabilities, saying that new partnerships and business opportunities in artificial intelligence applications will drive the transformation of smart services and the growth of new businesses.
