CXO Forum 2024 Sponsor Series: In conversation with Mr Bai Yang, ZTE

We are diving into one of the most transformative technologies of our time – 5G and its evolution into what’s known as 5G Advanced. As we move beyond faster mobile internet, the industry is unlocking a whole new realm of possibilities from smart cities to advanced AI solutions. Bai Yang, Vice President of Marketing and Solutions at ZTE Corporation shares more about 5G Advanced technologies with Bridge Alliance Senior Vice President of Partnership and New Business Ken Wee.

Ken: Bai Yang, could you kick us off with some insights on this groundbreaking 5G Advanced technologies please.

Bai Yang: I think the launch of 5G-A in 2024 opens new business opportunities for telecom operators as we enter the second phase of 5G. So first of all, I think should be the industry verticals. The 5G-A will enable a more advanced applications for industries like manufacturing, healthcare, and also logistics. Operators can provide tailored services such as private 5G networks or enhance the IoT solution and creating new revenue streams.

And secondly, I think should be immersive consumer experience. With 5G-A, enhanced AR/VR experiences will become more mainstream, allowing operators to collaborate with content providers and offer premium services in entertainment, gaming and education. And then the next one, I think should be the smart cities and IoT. 5G-A’s ability to support the massive IoT deployments will enable operators to play a central role in smart city projects, offering connectivity and data management solutions.

And lastly, I think it should be the AI and automation. The 5G-A will drive AI-powered network optimisation and automation, helping the operators to reduce costs and also offering AI-based services like predictive maintenance and smart infrastructure management.

 

Ken: Considering the profound integration of 5G Advanced and AI, particularly with the emergence of GenAI. In what ways can ZTE’s connectivity solutions improve the overall performance of computing infrastructure?

Bai Yang: Yeah, sure. I think network is the foundation of all applications. ZTE provides high performance end-to-end network solutions and equipment to build high-speed, low latency network connections, which can enable AI processing to add at the network edge and to provide the connectivity needed for distributed AI processing. So it is essential for scaling the resource-intensive generative AI tasks. ZTE is the first one in the industry to achieve the evolution of the mid-band AAU from 64TR to 128TR, which doubles the capacity. And based on the industry’s largest high-frequency base station with 1.6GHz bandwidth, it’s also got ultra-large capacity of 28Gbps.

So the new generation of data center network solution Cloud DCN version 3.0, through the self-developed 400G high-speed, low-latency connection base and also integrated to the lossless Ethernet technology like RoCE, helps operators and government and enterprise customers to build high-performance, low-latency, zero-packet-loss network solutions that can meet the needs of AI large-model business applications.

 

Ken: In the 5G Advanced era, a primary emphasis is on expanding the range of network applications. How is ZTE facilitating the creation of new application scenarios to address the changing needs of vertical industries in consumer markets?

Bai Yang: Yeah. ZTE has verified and deployed a large number of new 5G applications with operators such as 5G AGV, and also the 5G machine vision, 5G XR and 5G Holography with Thailand AIS and 5G Cloud PC with Indonesia Telkomsel. In addition, ZTE’s 5G FWA solution won the “Best Practice for 5G Network” award in Indonesia this year.

And with the evolution of 5G-A, ZTE has made an overall layout and development application. Based on 6 scenarios, which includes a seamless 10Gbps experience, massive IoT, deterministic capability, integrated sensing and communication, and also the very unique connectivity and also, universal intelligence. So this kind of technology evolution, ZTE is committed to realize three visions of 5G-A; one is B2C, and also, I think is the B2B, B2B means build digital industry in production domain.

And also the last one is a B2X that will consolidate the digital society via a new potential economy value. So in the ‘2C’ field, I think we will enhance the public digital life experience throughout the work enhancement, that so we can unveil the groundbreaking “5G-A ultra high-definition (UHD) shallow compression wireless mobile live broadcast. We have this application at the Chinese Spring Festival Gala.

In the ‘2B’ field, we also focus on enhancing network capabilities to expand the business from the management domain to the production domain, and deeply empower the digital intelligence industry. ZTE has carried out 5G fully connected factory practice in its Nanjing Binjiang Intelligent Manufacturing Base, built an industrial Internet platform and deployed innovative applications like 5G cloud AGV, 5G cloud PLC and also 5G machine vision. And also the robots and digital twins, achieving a 113% increase in per capita output and also 80% reduction in assembly quality missed inspection rate.

So this is a very good improvement on that. And also the last one is, the new ‘2X’ field, ZTE focuses on expanding the capabilities of global inter-sensing computing and space-ground integration to support low-latitude, and vehicle-connected business, and to help build a digital society, We completed the verification of the industry’s first IoV, that means Internet of Vehicles, architecture in Zhuhai. Our ultra-reliable network and edge-cloud at 5G-A base station in Suzhou provides 20 milliseconds at a very low-latency and high-reliability vehicle road coordination to ensure 60km/h autonomous driving.

 

Ken: The field of intelligent computing has seen significant advancements in recent years. What strategies can we implement to enable industry partners to boost innovation and offer operators quicker, more efficient application deployment?

Bai Yang: Alright. Our company offers, an end-to-end solution that I mentioned before that includes powerful, GPU server hardware and also, LLM platform and AI applications, which enable industry partners to accelerate, the innovations and streamlined development. So the first one is the AI-Assisted Development – our Digital Nebula, that’s a platform which is backed by robots, the GPU hardware and simplifies development with AI-driven tools for code generation, optimization and debugging.

And this reduces the complex and will speed up the creation of industry-specific applications, helping partners innovate faster. And the other one is the Pre-Built AI Models and Insights. We provide a pre-trained AI models and industry-specific insights and that is supported by our service infrastructure. These models are ready for quick customization on development in industries like healthcare, manufacturing and also smart cities to accelerate time-to-market by these kind of solutions. And the third one is the Complete AI Solutions. Our company delivers a full suite of hardware, Digital Nebula platform, and all AI applications, offering partners everything that they need to develop and deploy AI-powered 5G applications efficiently, and this integrated approach ensures a smooth operation across all stages of development.

 

Ken: Bai Yang, thank you so much for your time today and for sharing a very insightful conversation on the opportunities that come with 5G Advanced.

Bai Yang: Thank you for your time. I think it’s my pleasure to present ZTE’s strengths on these kind of scenarios.