Huawei’s Li Peng outlines five trends that will shape an intelligent digital future - MBBF2023
The 14th edition of the Global Mobile Broadband Forum - MBBF 2023 kicked off in Dubai, UAE on 10th October 2023 with a strong speaker lineup and innovative product launches. The event, hosted by Huawei in cooperation with GSMA, GTI, and the SAMENA Telecommunications Council, brings together key stakeholders and ICT industry leaders across the globe to discuss the development direction of the mobile communications industry and the infinite possibilities of mobile connectivity.
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This year's forum dubbed MBBF 2023 - incorporated both online and onsite activities, which provided an exciting opportunity for industry players to explore 5G business successes, promote ecosystem maturity, and accelerate 5.5G commercialization. Delivering the keynote address at MBBF 2023, Huawei's corporate Senior vice president and President of the company's Carrier BG, Li Peng, outlined the five trends that will shape the smart and intelligent digital future 5G and its next evolution 5.5G promises.
According to Li Peng, "5G is a critical part of new economic transformation, and it is enabling new innovation in general purpose technologies. For digital industries, 5G is developing fast, opening up new markets and opportunities."
What is 5G?
5G, or fifth generation mobile networks, is a breakthrough in wireless technology that aims to make our digital lives faster, smarter, and more connected. Consider your current 4G internet speed and multiply it by a factor of ten. It has lightning-fast data download and upload speeds. 5G is, however, more than just speed. It has extremely low latency, which means there is negligible delay between sending and receiving data which is critical for real-time applications such as online gaming and autonomous vehicles, as it ensures immediate responses. 5G networks can handle many devices at the same time, paving the way for the Internet of Things (IoT), which is mainly the interconnectivity between devices that make our homes and offices smarter.
Speaking on 5G-Advanced, the next evolutionary step in 5G technology, Mr Li Peng also noted that the industry needs to work together to promote the development of device and application ecosystems, verify use case scenarios, and accelerate the large-scale commercialization of FWA Square, Passive IoT, and RedCap. These efforts he stated are crucial to make the most of the five new trends t hat will shape an intelligent digital future which he outlined to be;
Glasses-Free 3D
The glasses-free 3D industry ecosystem is maturing fast. Breakthroughs in technologies including cloud rendering and real-time 3D virtual humans will take immersive experience to new heights. Moving forward, more and more devices like mobile phones and TVs will support glasses-free 3D, which will drive data traffic up by a factor of ten relative to 2D video.
Self-Guided Vehicles
By 2025, there will be more than 500 million smart vehicles on the road. With high-bandwidth and low-latency networks, smart vehicles will be able to share information with people, vehicles, roads, and the cloud in real time. In assisted-driving scenarios, smart vehicles will consume more than 300 gigabytes of data every month for cloud-based model training and weekly algorithm updates. In self-driving scenarios, data consumption will rise by a factor of 100.
Next-Gen Manufacturing
With breakthroughs in capabilities like network slicing and edge computing, the number of 5G private networks for enterprise use has increased a hundredfold, and the market size has grown to over US$10 billion. However, as production lines become more flexible, increasingly reliant on wireless networks, and more core production systems are deployed on the cloud, higher requirements are posed on 5G networks.
Huawei worked with a carrier and industry partners to build the industry's first 5G-Advanced flexible trial production line. For this production line, 5G-Advanced supports high-concurrency and highly deterministic network connections, which helps more efficiently connect computing power between cloud and network edge.
Generalized Cellular IoT
There are more than three billion mobile IoT connections around the world, and 5G now connects more things than people. Soon, 5G will support a broader range of IoT technologies like medium-speed RedCap and Passive IoT. This will provide more options for different IoT scenarios, allowing for more efficient flow of data, information, and computing power. For example, in the home appliance manufacturing sector, Passive IoT can help provide visibility along the entire distribution and production chain and has already helped increase overall productivity by 30% in verification trials.
Guaranteed Intelligent Computing Everywhere
With the rise of new developments in AI, such as foundation models, demand for AI computing power will see explosive growth. By 2025, this demand is expected to be 100 times greater than current levels. To unleash the full potential of AI computing power, more advanced network capabilities are key. Networks will need to have larger bandwidth and lower latency to power truly intelligent connectivity. In addition, as traffic models begin to change, future networks will need to be more autonomous and intelligent to deliver a reliable experience.
Conclusion
Li Peng’s speech was a glimpse into a future where technology surpasses existing boundaries and facilitates new possibilities that will reshape societies and economies. As the industry absorbs these insights, the path towards 5.5G-Advanced becomes clearer, promising a future where connectivity is not just ubiquitous but intelligent to ensure a digital society that is truly inclusive, immersive, and transformative.