The future is always beyond imagination: Huawei Gaigang deeply interprets "Communication Network 2030"

At the 2022 Global Analyst Conference, Huawei and industry partners held the "Smart World 2030" forum. Gai Gang, President of Huawei's ICT Strategy and Business Development Department, delivered a speech on the theme of "Building a Three-Dimensional, Ultra-Wide, Green and Intelligent Future Communication Network", and deeply interpreted the six major problems of the future of communication networks.

Huawei predicts that the number of global connections will increase by at least 10 times to 200 billion in 2030, from connecting tens of billions of people to connecting hundreds of billions of things, and the Internet of Everything will eventually become a reality. At the same time, with the advent of new applications such as metaversms and holograms, the demand for bandwidth will also increase by a hundredfold, the per capita wireless cellular traffic will increase by 40 times, and the penetration rate of home broadband users in gigabits and above will increase by 50 times. Applications such as 1-millisecond ultra-low latency such as factory automation will also be widely popularized in 2030, and the delay will be reduced by a hundred times more than it is today. It is foreseeable that in 2030, the interaction between the physical world and the virtual world will reach a new height, and the surreal, immersive and extreme experience will be everywhere.

What kind of communication network can meet such a hundredfold experience improvement? Huawei believes that the communication network 2030 will have six key characteristics: three-dimensional ultra-wide, communication perception fusion, deterministic experience, intelligent native, safe and trustworthy, and green and low-carbon.

Stereoscopic ultra-wide is first of all "stereoscopic", not only supporting ground connection, but also extending to the air, forming a seamless coverage network of air and earth, and people can enjoy a continuous, high-speed broadband experience no matter where they are. New application scenarios will also bring new technical challenges, requiring technological breakthroughs and innovations in ultra-high-speed satellite movement and ultra-long-distance interstellar communications. At the same time, ten years later, human beings will usher in the era of holographic, omnisensory, and full interaction, and the broadband connections of individuals, families, and organizations will also evolve from the current gigabit fiber, gigabit wireless and gigabit wifi to three million gigabits, entering the ultra-broadband era of 10Gbps anywhere. Three 10 Gigabit demands will drive the continuous development and evolution of technology and standards for communication networks, such as wireless networks will move from the current 5G to 5.5G and 6G, and fixed networks will move from the current F5G to F5.5G and F6G.

In 2030, communication and perception will be deeply integrated, and the integration of the Interconnection of All Things and the Perception of All Things will bring new applications and new scenarios that go beyond the traditional. For example, the integration of wireless communication and wireless perception will usher in innovative applications such as vehicle-road collaboration of the Internet of Vehicles, ultra-low-altitude detection of unmanned aerial vehicles, and high-precision positioning of smart factories. Gai Gang said that with the help of wireless 5.5G and 6G innovative technologies can achieve centimeter-level positioning accuracy, millimeter-level imaging resolution and 100% geographical coverage, with the help of fiber perception technology to combine the ripple analysis of fiber optic vibration with artificial intelligence, will also create a large number of new applications. For example, the optical fiber is buried deep along the oil and gas pipeline, and the operation of the oil and gas pipeline is accurately sensed while transmitting data, and problems such as oil leakage and gas leakage are found in advance. F5G and F6G innovative technologies based on fixed networks can achieve meter-level positioning accuracy, and the signal acquisition rate and recognition accuracy rate will reach 99.9%.

Deterministic experiences are the third key feature of communication networking 2030. Huawei expects that in 2030, low-latency applications will be widely popularized, and applications such as factory automation production, vehicle autonomous driving, and remote surgery will require low latency within ten milliseconds, which can ensure the high reliability and high safety of the service. Therefore, the future communication network needs to have the ability of three levels of latency, and a low latency of less than 10 milliseconds will become the basic service of the communication network 2030. In addition, innovations around low latency will emerge in an endless stream, such as ultra-low latency coding for 6G and F6G, latency-sensitive networks, and intelligent routing, which will revolutionize future production and life.

Smart native is also one of the key features of communication network 2030. In the next decade, the number of connections and connection density of communication networks will increase exponentially, so the configuration and operation and maintenance of the network will become more and more complex, and only the comprehensive introduction of artificial intelligence technology can effectively solve the problems of network operation and operation. Gai Gang said that the three-tier architecture of network source + AI, network + AI, and service + AI will provide network users with zero waiting, zero contact, and zero failure network service experience, and also create self-configuring, self-repairing, and self-optimizing efficient O&M capabilities for network operators. Huawei predicts that communications networks are expected to have a high degree of autonomy at the L4 level by 2025 and full autonomy at the L5 level by 2030.

Security and credibility has always been a key requirement of communication networks. In 2030, the number of global connections will reach 200 billion, 90% of enterprises will adopt multi-cloud, the world will enter the era of Yaobyte data, in such a large environment, communication networks should not only connect everything down, uplink multi-cloud, but also carry a large number of key data of enterprises, which requires that communication networks must be secure and credible. To this end, Huawei proposes a full-scenario security and credibility framework, and carries out key technological innovations in endogenous security and native trustworthiness. It is estimated that by 2030, 100% of new communication networks will use endogenous and secure network technologies, and more than 50% of new networks will use native trusted technologies such as converged blockchain and privacy computing.

In the context of the era of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, green and low carbon has become one of the focus topics in the world, and therefore the sixth key feature of communication networks 2030. In 2030, the traffic of communication networks will increase by at least 100 times, and if energy consumption is not increased or less increased, it is almost impossible to rely on the breakthrough of single-point technology, which requires systematic improvement of network energy efficiency from the four latitudes of equipment, site, network and operation. For example, the development of device-level co-encapsulation optical technology, the promotion of site-level form reconstruction, network-level energy-saving routing, operation-level AI automatic hibernation, and so on. Through theoretical innovation, architectural innovation and software algorithm innovation, it is possible to achieve a hundredfold energy efficiency improvement of communication networks.

"The future is always outside the imagination, and the best way to predict the future is to create the future." Gai Gang said, "On the road to 2030, Huawei will continue to unite the strength of the entire industry and promote the continuous progress of the communication network industry." ”