Xie Junshi, Chief Operating Officer of ZTE: Digitalization is continuously improving social immunity

Recently, at the GSMA's special post MWC22 Sixianghui, Xie Junshi, executive vice president and chief operating officer of ZTE, attended and shared views on topics such as 5G scenario applications, mobile technology and industrial development trends under the digital process.

Xie Junshi believes that in the VUCA era, digitalization is continuously improving the "immunity" of the entire society, playing an irreplaceable role in responding to the new crown epidemic, population aging and sustainable development. At the same time, with the acceleration of the global digitalization process, technology and market are accelerating fission and fusion, emerging more technological innovation and a broader market space, communication service providers (CSPs) have also sought to transform into digital service providers (DSPs). ZTE adheres to the scene and value-driven, and is willing to work with industry partners to build a digital wisdom and life world.

Accelerating the process of global digitalization and enhancing the "immunity" of the whole society

We believe that digitalization is becoming a social "vaccine" in the post-epidemic era, and remote office, online collaboration, and intelligent factories are not only protecting life, but also continuously improving the "immunity" of society and helping healthy economic development. At the same time, digitalization will also become a key path to cope with VUCA, population aging and achieve green, low-carbon and sustainable development.

Currently, driven by scenarios and values, technology and markets are accelerating fission and fusion. At the just-concluded Mobile World Congress 2022, we saw that exhibitors are more diverse and display content is more abundant, from mobile Internet to Internet of Everything to Internet of Everything, from ubiquitous 5G to AI evolution, to cloud network integration, emerging technologies, etc. It should be said that the global digitalization process has accelerated, more technological innovation and a wider market space will accelerate the opening, and traditional communication service providers (CSPs) are seeking to transform into digital service providers (DSPs).

In addition, throughout every industrial revolution, efficiency is the eternal pursuit, and digitalization is no exception. At this year's Mobile World Congress, exhibitors, including ZTE, showed more on how to improve efficiency, such as building a simplified infrastructure and intelligent and efficient operation, agile innovation to open up the second curve of digital services, scenario-based experience and efficiency improvement, green and low-carbon sustainable development, and future technology evolution.

Survival and development is the core appeal of enterprises, and 5G ToB scale needs to solve three major problems

Different from consumers' pursuit of differentiated experiences, the core demand of enterprises for 5G networks is to reduce costs and improve efficiency, and better help enterprises survive and develop. At present, we have carried out a large number of application practices in the field of 5G To B, typical application scenarios such as manual assistance and substitution with pan-5G technology, flexible production lines with cloud-based AGVs, efficient quality inspection with 8k machine vision, and remote or unmanned mechanical operations.

We believe that the premise of the large-scale breakthrough of 5G To B is how to achieve a win-win situation for operators and enterprises, so it is necessary to solve three major problems: facing market competition and building "differentiated" capabilities; focusing on business logic and accelerating the process of "monetization"; and returning to the essence of operation and exploring the path of "intensification".

First of all, "people have no me, people have me" is the way to win the market competition, for example, in the 5G industry application, we must first think about whether this solution is only 5G technology can be achieved, or use 5G technology solutions, compared to other technical solutions, where is its advantage, this is the ability to build differentiation.

The second is how to accelerate the "monetization" process, especially in the early stage, we need to abstract and focus on the typical applications that are more in line with customer pain points and just needs in fragmented scenarios, and then expand to more fields and scenarios, so that 5G 2B will enter a virtuous circle earlier.

Finally, from making money to profit, intensification is the only way, we advocate that the digital infrastructure capability to do atomic packaging, the cloud capability to do component packaging, according to different scenarios and applications to achieve convenient invocation and flexible combination, on this basis to do secondary innovation, so as to achieve ability reuse; at the same time continue to carry out common abstract precipitation from the scene, and constantly enrich and expand the digital base capabilities, forming rapid iteration and continuous evolution of capabilities.

"Never satisfied" is the source power of 5G ToC development, which requires the joint efforts of infrastructure and ecology

The source of the development of mobile consumer Internet lies in the insatiable nature of human nature and the continuous expansion of human capabilities, and it can be expected that the new application of 5G To C will also develop along this path. For example, leapfrogging the audiovisual experience can create a sense of immersion and achieve more real-time interactions, such as ultra-high-definition video, AR/VR applications, cloud games, etc., which also reflects this trend from the perspective of China, South Korea and other countries with high 5G penetration. For example, in the live broadcast of sports events, we have realized 360-degree casual viewing, remote and retractable arbitrary viewing, different camera positions to see independently, without leaving home, you can be immersed, and at the same time, we can also interact in real time to enrich the personalized experience. In addition, the metaverse is also one of the recent hot spots, and to achieve the metaverse, it is necessary to provide very powerful network capabilities, computing power and storage capabilities, which is also an important area for the integration of digital technologies such as 5G.

Of course, the popularization of 5G 2C applications is still inseparable from perfect network coverage, and we need to seek better cost-effective 5G solutions in outdoor continuous coverage, indoor deep coverage, and even high-speed rail, high altitude, and sea surface. At present, ZTE has a lot of innovations in these areas. In addition, more, more convenient and cheaper terminals, rich content and prosperous ecology are also the basis for the incubation of killer applications.

Force "1+2+3" to build a world of digital intelligence

We believe that 5G-Advanced will become the focus of the next stage of technology evolution, which is different from the first phase of 5G system built on 3GPP Rel-15/16/17, 5G-Advanced is based on the global 5G commercial deployment and empowerment of vertical industry practices, will focus on consumers better experience and the extensive expansion of industry applications.

In December 2021, with the joint efforts of industry partners, 3GPP jointly identified 28 projects for the rel-18 network architecture of the first version of 5G-Advanced, which will bring new capabilities, applications and experiences in the fields of eMBB, broadband real-time new media interaction, network intelligence, high-precision positioning and low-power IoT, industrial interconnection, synaesthesia fusion/positioning, and deep integration of satellite cells. ZTE will work with industry partners to actively promote technological innovation and industrial upgrading of 5G-Advanced.

In the specific network deployment evolution path, we advocate a problem-oriented, value-centered "1+2+3" to gradually build a digital intelligence integration world.

"1": Form a solid foundation with chips, algorithms and architectures, and continuously root downward to accumulate potential energy;

"2": With wisdom and security as the double-chain gene extending from the network to the service, it constitutes a trunk support;

"3": Continuous iterative innovation in the three aspects of ability, performance and efficiency to release kinetic energy, forming a leafy canopy of 5G, born to the sun.

It is believed that through the continuous innovation of technology and the joint efforts of the industry, 5G-Advanced will create a better digital and intelligent world.

China's 5G development will make more contributions to the industry and the global market

As of January 2022, China has built a total of 1.425 million 5G base stations, the network has covered cities across China, more than 98% of counties and 80% of townships, the number of 5G mobile terminal connections has reached 518 million, and more than 10,000 5G application innovation cases have played an enabling role in industry, medical care, education, transportation and other industries.

We believe that China's contributions in the 5G era include, but are not limited to, adhering to the moderate advance in 5G network construction and promoting the development of the 5G industry; actively exploring and promoting the large-scale development of 5G industry applications, consolidating the industrial foundation; and actively realizing network co-construction and sharing to improve resource efficiency.

China has a rich and complex wireless scenario, a good digital industry foundation, a huge consumer market and a rich industry type, the moderate advance construction of 5G network to ensure good coverage and performance, will inevitably accelerate the application expansion and continuous innovation, I believe that the future will still make more contributions to the industry and the global market.