- A keynote speech delivered at the opening ceremony of the Mobile World 
Congress (MWC) Shanghai 2021

ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a major international provider of 
telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile 
Internet, today announced that the company's President Xu Ziyang has delivered 
a keynote speech entitled "Build Stronger Core Competence, Achieve High-Quality 
Growth Together" at the opening ceremony of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 
Shanghai 2021, which kicked off today in Shanghai, China.

According to Mr. Xu, 5G is still in its fledgling stage, and digital and 
intelligent transformation has already gathered full momentum. ZTE maintains 
the judgement that development in this stage will encounter both technology 
challenges and business uncertainties. Technology challenges include constantly 
reducing costs and increasing efficiency for 5G infrastructures, and meeting 
higher performance requirements for different industry applications. 

To cope with technology challenges, ZTE builds stronger core competence and 
pursues excellence.

Challenges brought by business uncertainties refer to a series of problems that 
are not clearly understood, for example, the large-scale expansion, 
monetization, and business models of industry applications. 

Facing uncertainties in market expansion, ZTE strengthens "agile" capabilities 
to promote the digital and intelligent transformation of vertical industries, 
thus lowering startup costs, making quick trials and iterations, and promoting 
successful models. Meanwhile, ZTE welcomes deep and open cooperation with our 
partners in vertical industries and the ecosystem, to achieve high-quality 
growth together. 

Here comes the original speech as follows:  

Hello, everyone. Many people may know that there is a fast-growing plant called 
Giant King Grass. Within the half year after it sprouts, its stem is only about 
one inch in height, but the roots grow over 10 meters deep underground and 
spread wide vigorously to absorb nutrients and accumulate energy. Once it 
rains, the Giant King Grass can grow over two meters high in only several days. 
Then, how can a company grow fast? In view of this, I would like to talk about 
"Build Stronger Core Competence, Achieve High-Quality Growth Together­—For 
Digital and Intelligent Ecosystem of Shared Success." In this speech, I will 
share some of ZTE's innovations, practices, and thoughts, to call for all 
partners to make joint efforts in the 5G fledgling stage for a better future. 

The year 2020 was certainly extraordinary. The strike of COVID-19 and the 
ever-changing global environment seemed to disrupt 5G deployment, but in fact, 
China and other countries that had taken preemptive actions were keeping their 
pace. In the fight against the pandemic, technology succeeded. For consumers, 
the pandemic has greatly changed the way they live and work, making ICT 
services a necessity, like air, water, and electricity. Enterprises then need 
to accelerate digital and intelligent transformation, not only to reduce costs 
and increase efficiency, but to become more agile and intelligent, thus better 
coping with the uncertainties in external environments, markets, and 
technologies.

Digital and Intelligent Transformation in Full Swing

After two years of commercial practices, 5G is still in its fledgling stage, 
and digital and intelligent transformation has already gathered full momentum. 
We maintain the judgement that development in this stage will encounter both 
technology challenges and business uncertainties. Technology challenges 
include: to constantly reduce costs and increase efficiency for 5G 
infrastructures, and to meet higher performance requirements for different 
industry applications. Challenges brought by business uncertainties refer to a 
series of problems that are not clearly understood, for example, the 
large-scale expansion, monetization, and business models of industry 
applications.

For Technology Challenges, Build Stronger Core Competence and Pursue Excellence

To cope with technology challenges, we build stronger core competence and 
pursue excellence.

First of all, let's take a look at the evolution of cloud-network capability 
based on market progress. Phase 1 refers to the first 1–3 years when 5G 
networks are deployed. The focus of this phase is fusion for higher efficiency. 
For example, multi-frequency/RAT sites, large bandwidth, high efficiency, and 
DSS are applied to optimize resource utilization; new materials, new processes, 
and AI are employed to reduce energy consumption; and enhanced uplink, edge 
deployment, and multi-cloud synergy are developed to facilitate market 
expansion. The focus of Phase 2 is intelligence and openness. As the 5G traffic 
load increases, ubiquitous AI, open and decoupled architecture, and edge cloud 
and industry applications will further promote cloud-network integration, as 
well as uRLLC and millimeter wave technology. In Phase 3, the popularization of 
5G industry applications will raise higher requirements for cloud-network 
integration and stimulate continuous evolution of technologies. For example, 
ultra large antenna, Terahertz (THz), multi-dimensional connectivity, and 
AI-Native networks will emerge.

Ultimate Experience

To cope with the technology challenges, we make continuous innovations and 
breakthroughs for the ultimate user experience. For both consumer and business 
markets, the key to success is to create a brand-new experience for customers 
and users.

For consumers, we increase the high-rise coverage by 30% in complex scenarios 
with the Massive MIMO SSB 1+X beam broadcasting solution, improve 5G indoor 
coverage experience with cost-effective solutions by using eDAS that enables 
UL/DL multi-stream transmission through software implementation, apply 
Doppler-Shift Compensation to ensure good user experience in high-speed rail 
and air transport scenarios, and provide immersive experience of sports events 
and concerts through new home videos.

For vertical industry applications, we offer better access technology, like 
enhanced uplink of 5G networks and low-latency connectivity of PON. In the 
meantime, with E2E guarantee and enhanced network slicing, larger bandwidth, 
lower latency, and higher reliability, we can facilitate the expansion of 
industry applications, especially those in the OT field.

Ultimate Efficiency

Moreover, we constantly pursue ultimate efficiency, including the highest 
spectral, power, and network operational efficiency. These are vital for 
operators to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and achieve sustainable 
development. For example, we provide MU-MIMO with higher capacity, Cloud Radio 
with lower interference, SuperDSS that allows dynamic spectrum sharing among 
2/3/4/5G, higher-spectral-efficiency 800 Gbps OTN with single-wavelength, AIVO 
to improve efficiency by incorporating AI into different network building 
stages, PowerPilot precision power saving to reduce power consumption by 20% at 
site level through big data and AI, and, when 5G traffic load increases, 
in-depth coordination between frequencies and RATs to optimize energy 
efficiency while ensuring excellent user experience, by real-time service 
identification and energy efficiency analysis.

Ultimate Core Competence

Core competence is the cornerstone of ultimate experience and ultimate 
efficiency. In terms of chipset, advanced manufacturing technology, packaging, 
and joint software/hardware design can help overcome the bottleneck of Moore's 
Law. With rich experience in IPs and the digital IC DevOps COT design platform, 
we can safeguard our core competitiveness in chipset development. Algorithms 
are the essence of software and also the key to higher software quality and 
efficiency. We will focus on high cohesion at the physical layer, ultimate 
performance at the network layer, and feature optimization at the service 
layer, and continue to improve the AI algorithm library. This will bring about 
continuous improvement on chipsets and algorithms, and revolutionary progress 
in architecture. In terms of architecture, we will keep enhancing decoupling, 
promote microservice architecture, and achieve data-driven evolution to 
AI-Native architecture.

Facing the uncertainties in market expansion, we strengthen "agile" 
capabilities to promote the digital and intelligent transformation of vertical 
industries, thus lowering startup costs, making quick trials and iterations, 
and promoting successful models. Meanwhile, we welcome deep and open 
cooperation with our partners in vertical industries and the ecosystem, to 
achieve high-quality growth together.

Focus on Value Creation and Scenario-Based Services Make things EASIER

When facing the challenge of business uncertainties in vertical industries, we 
advocate being value-driven and scenario-based to make things "EASIER".

The first "E" stands for "Elastic", indicating the elasticity of applications, 
agnostic migration, and flexible scale-in/out brought by single-source 
heterogeneity and cloud native software. "A" is short for "Agile", meaning the 
computing power on demand, agile innovation, and rapid iteration and 
replication supported by lightweight software and hardware design. "S" 
indicates "Secure", referring to higher security guaranteed by zero trust 
through intrinsic security. "I" means "Intelligent", indicating the data-driven 
evolution and continuous algorithm iteration empowered by ubiquitous AI. The 
second "E" is short for "Easy", meaning that customers can easily use the 
network through simple and fast deployment and maintenance. "R" stands for 
"Reliable", indicating the reliable performance in latency and resources 
guaranteed by the TSN and finer-granularity hard-slicing technologies.

Strengthen Agility, Succeed in Edge

Agility makes success. With lightweight and flexibility as its basis, agility 
is key to addressing uncertainties. As vertical industry applications extend to 
the OT field, the edge will become the major field for innovation incubation 
and application. As for deployment of agile edge: 

In terms of hardware, on-premises gateways, embedded boards, all-in-one 
cabinets, and the resource pool of all-series servers can enjoy lightweight 
startup and expansion on demand. 

Regarding software, the TECS Cloud Foundation (TCF) enhances the technical 
service layer and boosts computing power through lightweight, NEO hardware 
acceleration, and dual core engine technologies. The coordination between 
software and hardware realizes flexible deployment and agile innovations of 
AnyWhere, AnySize, and AnyService.

Fast Iteration, High-Quality Growth

To tackle uncertainties, we need comprehensive enhancement and coordination in 
all fields to achieve "full decoupling", "dual circulations", and "deep 
optimization". 

"Full decoupling" indicates a further decoupled architecture based on cloud 
infrastructure. We employ finer-granularity components horizontally, and build 
a thinner PaaS layer to enable vertical decoupling of both technical service 
layer and general service layer. 

Besides, such an architecture enables dual circulations. Cycle optimization 
between the technical service layer and the infrastructure layer improves the 
infrastructure resource utilization efficiency and the coordination efficiency 
of applications, safeguarding edge application scenarios despite limited 
resources. Moreover, the general service layer and scenario-based applications 
are mutually supportive. Specifically, the former enables the service 
development on the upper application layer through its low-code architecture. 
At the same time, it also accumulates public logic and algorithms from the 
application layer, resolving the conflict between customization and scale to 
some extent.

Deep optimization lowers non-efficient redundancy expenses through multimode 
fusion, and ensures the best infrastructure efficiency in different 
applications through customized off-the-shelf hardware.

Digital and Intelligent Ecosystem of Shared Success

Rainforests are the most stable and robust ecosystems on this planet. Striving 
for stronger core competence and high-quality growth in the 5G era, ZTE expects 
to build a rainforest-like ecosystem with all partners in the industry for 
shared success. 

The industry and ecosystem require more professional coordination when facing 
up to business uncertainties. ZTE is committed to building a digital and 
intelligent ecosystem based on open underlying capabilities and more efficient 
collaboration, to achieve win-win with all partners. We are willing to open the 
capabilities of such core technologies as chipset, database, and OS, the E2E 
ICT product capabilities, including wireless and wired, computing power, and 
terminal fields, the component capabilities of AI, data and video, and 5G 
innovations to all industry and ecosystem partners for win-win success. As a 
faithful driver of the digital economy, ZTE is committed to tackling the 
toughest challenges to power the world with core 5G capability.

2021 marks the year of the Ox, which symbolizes resilience and perseverance in 
Chinese culture. It is exactly the spirit that ZTE has been carrying forward. 
We will remain down-to-earth and continue to keep words and actions consistent. 
Working closely together with the entire industry, we are bound to address all 
the challenges and difficulties. Thank you!

Media Contact:

Margaret Ma  
ZTE Corporation  
Tel: +86 755 26775189   
Email: ma.gaili@zte.com.cn

SOURCE  ZTE Corporation



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   Caption: ZTE President Xu Ziyang: Build Stronger Core Competence, Achieve 
High-Quality Growth Together