A keynote speech delivered at Mobile World Congress 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 CEO Xu Ziyang has delivered a 
keynote speech entitled "Fuel the Digitalization, Endow with Intelligence" at 
the opening ceremony of Mobile World Congress 2021.

According to Mr. Xu Ziyang, 5G applications, with the large-scale commercial 
deployments of 5G networks, have entered into a period of iterative 
development. Although challenges like ecological construction and business 
models need to be confronted with, the direction of innovation turns to be 
gradually clearer. ZTE, bolstered with over-two-year practices with the 
industry and ecological partners, has worked out three major application 
innovation directions and a digital empowerment foundation.

The three innovation directions of 5G applications as mentioned above cover, 
specifically, empowering individuals with 5G expanding the boundaries of senses 
and creating infinite possibilities, empowering target groups with 5G bridging 
the digital gap, and empowering industries with 5G promoting the industrial 
revolution.

Meanwhile, the digital empowerment foundation has achieved breakthroughs in 
"ubiquitous broadband", "pervasive computing", "multi-dimensional convergence" 
and "green energy saving", enabling strong interactions in real time, agile and 
innovative applications, maximum resource efficiency and sustainable 
development.

The company is willing to open these underlying capabilities to all industry 
and ecosystem partners, to embrace a win-win future.

Here comes the original speech of Mr. Xu Ziyang as follows:  

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, distinguished guests, ladies and 
gentlemen,

It's my great honor to be participating in MWC Barcelona 2021 virtually, which 
is very different from the way we used to be. What I'm going to share with you 
is "Fuel the Digitalization, Endow with Intelligence", which bears the hope, 
together with our partners in the ecosystem, to find the way for the digital 
and intelligent transformation of human society by continuously strengthening 
the digital foundation.

As many of you have known, it's been two years since the first launch of 5G. To 
date, over 1.1 million 5G base stations are in operation around the globe. 5G 
not only brings an improved user experience, but drives digital and intelligent 
transformation of verticals. What we are seeing is ZTE's 5G Intelligent 
Manufacturing Base in Nanjing. Five 5G base stations are produced here every 
minute, which are shipped all over the world. It is also an excellent example 
of our practice in "Intelligent Manufacturing Powered by 5G". Here, with the 
full coverage of 5G networks and implementation of MEC, we deployed 10 typical 
5G applications which are essential to the realization of intelligent 
manufacturing, including cloud-based AGV, 8K machine vision, cloud-based PLC, 
smart storage, industrial wearables, digital twins, and onsite inspection. You 
can see the quite encouraging figures, the manpower was reduced by 40%, the 
defect rate went down by 20%, and the production cycle was declined by 30%, 
while the production efficiency was increased by 40%.

Moreover, we, together with over 90 operators and 500 partners in globe, have 
been exploring innovative 5G applications on a wide scope, and massive use 
cases in more than 15 industry sectors were developed with positive outcomes. 
We are pleased to see that the changes brought by 5G and many other new 
information technologies are taking place in Thailand's factories, Belgium's 
ports, Austria's farms, and manufacturing, transportation, power grid, and 
environmental protection in China. 

Though 5G applications are still in the earlier stage, we can now clearly 
identify a few directions. The first one came into my mind is to expand the 
boundaries of senses and create infinite possibilities for individuals. You 
know, the boundary between the digital world and the physical world is 
gradually getting blurred, thanks to the introduction of new networks and cloud 
services. Smart home makes our life easier. Wearing an AR/VR headset, we can 
enjoy immersive experience of traveling, gaming, sports events, and concerts 
from the comfort of our own homes. By operating drones, we are able to extend 
our vision. With such applications as autonomous driving, machine vision, 
unmanned mining, and rescue robots, our property and lives are becoming even 
better protected.

Secondly, it is to bridge the digital gap, aiming for sustainable development 
goals in globe. For example, Telemedicine over 5G allows doctors and 
specialists to diagnose patients remotely, putting high-quality medical 
resources within immediate reach. Reporters can communicate with customers face 
to face using the holographic technology. Distance learning provides equal 
educational opportunities for regions at different development stages. 5G FWA 
enables rapid provision of broadband services in some areas with limited 
infrastructure. People can freely work from home as effectively as in the 
office. With the 5G Air-To-Ground technology, passengers can enjoy in-flight 
services just as smooth as when they are on the ground. As we can see, 5G 
narrows the distance between the people and brings hearts closer, leading to a 
more harmonious society.

Furthermore, in line with the modern industrial revolution, we develop 
information technology to accelerate social development. For instance, smart 
factories represent a leap from the traditional manufacturing, lowering costs 
while improving efficiency and quality. Intelligent traffic infrastructure 
facilitates low-carbon emission and more effective transportation. 5G helps 
construct reliable, safe, economical, efficient, and environment-friendly smart 
grids by implementing extensive connectivity with low latency and low cost, 
which eventually is to reduce carbon emissions. With 5G, intelligent management 
becomes a reality in agriculture. 5G also improves our living environment with 
higher water and air quality, thus promoting sustainable development.

The innovative applications we have today certainly need to be further 
developed by diving in economies of scale and business models. However, one 
common requirement should and must be identified, which is the digital 
enablement platform.

As many of you have already been aware, "data driven" is no doubt the key to 
digital transformation of hundreds of thousands of verticals. Consequently, 
computing-centric evolved into data-centric. With this understanding, the 
Digital Foundation, which plays the important role, shall be improved 
continuously in terms of "ubiquitous broadband", "pervasive computing", and 
"multi-dimensional convergence". On top of it, new markets will be expanded and 
business sustainability will be secured.

We believe that the enhanced network capability moves its way up in three 
aspects: bandwidth, agility, and scheduling.

In terms of widening the bandwidth, what is worth mentioning is the 5G uplink 
enhancement and gigabit optical access for wired broadband.

As for network agility, the SRv6 makes IP networks more flexible and 
programmable. FlexE-based VPN capability and hard slicing satisfy the demands 
for low latency, low jittering, ultra-reliability, and secure isolation. 
Optical networks took mesh the next stage of evolution, which improves 
capacity, lowers latency, and increases redundancy. Cloud-native core supports 
deployments and operations in a more flexible, agile, and elastic manner.

We can use resource scheduling, control/forwarding separation, automated 
end-to-end slicing orchestration, automated provisioning within minutes, and 
flexible slicing operations to improve the efficiency of operation.

Data is soaring in both volume and variety in the AIoT era. Meanwhile, data 
processing becomes more complicated with the introduction of AI, for instance, 
deep learning algorithms. The centralized computing capacities no longer excel 
in terms of security and efficiency. On the contrary, cloud-edge-terminal 
synergy has been considered the cure-all for this headache. With the capacity 
difference recognized among cloud, edge and terminal, and advanced optimization 
on software, hardware, and chipsets, load-sensitive hyper-convergence becomes 
the key to the infrastructure which guarantees scalability, agility, and fast 
iteration. 

This actually brings me to a few big words: cloud-network convergence, 
software-hardware convergence, AI convergence, and also intrinsic security.

First of all, we do need clouds on demand and cloud-network synergy to fit the 
diversities. The practice we implemented last year, say "Precise Cloud and 
Network Solution", really showcased the power of a good example for serving 
vertical enterprises and accelerating the digital transformation.

In addition, software-hardware convergence enriches our skill sets to pursue 
the nature of business and cost efficiency. Software goes for cloud-native, 
micro services, and components; in parallel, hardware is looking for ultimate 
performance. We can break the hard boundaries of them by conducting joint and 
global optimization dedicated for specific scenarios. For instance, we will see 
more universal accelerator options, and more chiplet innovations. 

Speaking of AI, it is to make the most of data value. Big data and training 
model-based AI convergence supports cross-domain coordination of systems and 
nodes, facilitates orchestration from data center down to radio interface, and 
enables more efficient operation and maintenance. 

Last but not the least, intrinsic security acts as a self-sensing, 
self-adaptive, and self-evolving immune system for networks. Built during 
network construction, it offers multiple security functions, and can evolve 
automatically during network operation, thus constantly guaranteeing the 
security, services, and data.

According to GSMA, the mobile communications industry is currently responsible 
for around 0.4% of carbon emissions globally. It is the common goal of the 
industry to reduce carbon emissions. To build green networks with lower power 
consumption, ZTE advocates taking proper measures in the whole network life 
cycle.

Specially, more efficient and intelligent production and manufacturing can be 
realized with lower power consumption through 5G Industrial Internet, MEC, and 
AI. As for innovations in base stations, we can improve the design of chipsets, 
power amplifiers, and system integration for higher power efficiency. During 
network construction, carbon emissions can be reduced by using clean energy and 
highly efficient backup power supply for base stations, and heat dissipation 
technologies for data centers, such as preset modular design and liquid cooling 
technology. In network operation, solutions such as PowerPilot can be used for 
intelligent algorithm-based traffic scheduling, thus lowering power consumption 
while ensuring good user experience.

With such measures in the whole network life cycle, we can assist operators in 
building green networks more effectively.

Although 5G has been put into commercial use for over two years, it is still in 
the earlier stage. To secure its commercial success, we should also work 
together to innovate in ecosystem development and business models. Committed to 
the development of the industry and ecosystem, ZTE has gained rich experience 
in core technologies, E2E DICT products and solutions, cloud components, and 5G 
innovations. We are willing to open these underlying capabilities to all 
industry and ecosystem partners. I am excited to see where this trend will lead 
us. Let's work together to embrace a win-win future. 

Thank you.

Media Contacts:

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

Source: ZTE Corporation

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