On September 27, the 2021 China International Infocomm Exhibition opened in Beijing. At the moment of accelerating digital transformation, ZTE participated in the exhibition with the theme of "New Growth, New Value", and comprehensively presented the thinking, practice and achievements of empowering the industry's digital transformation through five exhibition areas: "Extreme 5G New Value", "ZhiwangTuo cloud integration computing power", "Industry Sail Empowerment Ecology", "Continuous Growth Wisdom Evolution" and "Digital Life Ultimate Experience".
In the "Ultimate 5G New Value" exhibition area, ZTE showcased a series of differentiated and innovative solutions, such as SuperMIMO, FAST, mmWave leading technology, as well as the industry's first wireless intelligent orchestration network solution, AIVO3.0, etc., to help maximize the value of 5G networks; all-scenario IP products, smart broadband new optical networks, PON+ and other highly competitive wired product solutions to create all-scenario all-optical connection. The exhibition area of "Zhiwangtuo Cloud Fusion Computing Power" showcased ZTE's tailor-made cloud-network integration customization solutions for operators and industry customers, flexibly meeting the new needs of industry digital transformation and operators to promote industrialization and upgrading. In the exhibition area of "Industry Sail Empowering Ecology", ZTE exhibited the world's first 5G commercial industrial private network and 5G+PLC intelligent production line in the steel industry jointly built by Guangdong Unicom for Baosteel Zhanjiang Steel, a smart factory jointly built by Yunnan Mobile and Shenhuo Group, and a 5G cloud XR platform -ZTE XRplore that has been commercialized in many projects such as China Telecom's smart business body project, Xinhua News Agency, Jingyu Donkey Mother, Shanxi Jinci Temple, etc. Netchuang Cloud, which realizes large-scale applications in the fields of operators and other fields, and GoldenDB, the only domestic distributed database used in the core system of large domestic banks. In the exhibition area of "Digital Life Ultimate Experience", it brings rich business applications such as whole house intelligence, secure office, mobile terminal, mobile Internet, terminal ecology, etc., showing the colorful digital life panorama brought by scientific and technological innovation.
Wang Xiang, chief strategy officer of ZTE, talked about his understanding of the "double carbon" goal and ZTE's plan for achieving the double carbon goal.
Wang Xiang said that the proposal of the national "double carbon" goal is, on the one hand, the inherent requirement for achieving sustainable and high-quality development of China's economy, and on the other hand, as a global power, it is also the responsibility to promote the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind. To achieve this goal, it is necessary for all walks of life to work together. The use of cleaner energy, through technical means to reduce energy consumption in the process of production and life, etc., can make the realization of the "double carbon" goal further. Therefore, in addition to finding new low-carbon energy, increasing scientific and technological innovation, optimizing production processes, and improving energy efficiency have also become the focus of many energy-consuming economic entities.
Among them, the digital transformation of enterprises is the main practice of the industry, and the traditional industry simplifies production management channels through enterprise cloud and intelligent network connection, which can reduce energy consumption in the production process while improving quality and efficiency.
As an important part of the digital transformation process of enterprises, ICT companies that build network infrastructure are particularly important. It is not only necessary to consider how to reduce the energy consumption of the equipment itself with the increase in demand for ICT equipment, but also to provide matching solutions in combination with the actual situation of various industries. According to ITU statistics, technology in the ICT sector will enable sectors to reduce their CO2 emissions by about 7.8G tons in 2020, accounting for 15% of annual emissions. From an economic point of view, ICT-based energy efficiency translates into cost savings of around €600 billion. It can be said that the contribution of the ICT industry to the reduction of carbon emissions in society is obvious.
It is reported that ZTE has long been committed to helping operator customers build a green and low-carbon communication network infrastructure before the national "double carbon" goal was proposed. Nowadays, it is regarded as one of the company's core strategies for sustainable development, while practicing its own low-carbon development, it also provides green empowerment for energy conservation and emission reduction in more industries.
At this year's China International Information and Communication Exhibition, ZTE put forward the vision of taking the "boulevard of digital economy", hoping to achieve the "double carbon" goal as soon as possible, and achieve the green development of all walks of life through technology and product empowerment.
In Wang Xiang's view, "carbon peaking" and "carbon neutrality" are the only way for an economy to develop to a certain extent, and green and low carbon can achieve sustainable development, and the proposal of this goal is very forward-looking, and also reflects China's responsibility as a global power. At present, our country has now entered the late stage of industrialization, and began to move towards the post-industrialization stage, the economic structure has undergone relatively large changes, the tertiary industry gradually dominates, and also has the basis for implementing the "double carbon" goal.
Speaking of specific planning, Wang Xiang said that ZTE's overall goal is to achieve "carbon peak" as early as 2030 and "carbon neutrality" as early as 2060.
"Before the 'double carbon' goal came out, we had already begun to pay attention to environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction, and with the introduction of the national 'double carbon' related policies, we will pay more attention." According to Wang Xiang, ZTE has a set of relatively mature emission reduction ideas to empower the green development of the company itself, the upstream and downstream of the industry and all sectors of society. We summarize it as "green operation", "green ICT base", "green supply chain" and "green industry empowerment" four aspects, and promote it simultaneously.
Specifically, first of all, "green operation" is aimed at reducing emissions in the process of our own operations. The vast majority of ZTE's internal emissions come from electrical energy consumption, such as production electricity, R&D electricity, office electricity, etc. The company is directly or indirectly reducing greenhouse gas emissions by optimizing processes, energy-saving retrofits, and increasing the use of green electricity.
At present, ZTE has 9 projects in the country for its own office energy conservation, which can save about 21.56 million KWH of electricity per year, which is equivalent to reducing carbon dioxide by 19,800 tons. In our Shenzhen headquarters, for example, the roof is covered with a large area of solar panels, which can provide about 2.8 million KWH of clean energy electricity per year.
Recently, the Nanjing Binjiang Intelligent Manufacturing Base invested and built by ZTE has also been completed. In the production link, through the analysis of the energy consumption of the whole production process, the base has carried out process improvement in the high temperature aging link, realizing automatic temperature regulation and precise temperature control, reducing energy consumption by 40%; in other links, through unmanned intelligent inspection, XR remote expert online guidance, etc., the travel rate is reduced by 30%, which not only reduces the carbon footprint, but also saves more than one million travel expenses every year.
Second, ZTE provides a "green ICT base" for the society, that is, to reduce the carbon emissions of the energy introduction link with the green energy solution, and to significantly reduce the carbon emissions of the energy use link with green sites and green data centers. ZTE's greater room for emission reduction lies in reducing the carbon footprint of its products, which is more than 10 times that of its own operations. ZTE has integrated environmental protection requirements into concept design, achievement appraisal, design stereotyping, and product certification, and established a green product life cycle management system to reduce emissions during the sale and use of products. In the future, ZTE will, as always, develop and utilize new technologies, new devices and new energy to reduce emissions, and contribute more low-carbon products and low-carbon solutions to customers and society.
Third, work with upstream and downstream to establish a "green supply chain". Wang Xiang said that the formulation of carbon targets also depends on the decarbonization process of upstream products and services, and the most prominent impact is the carbon footprint of component materials and the carbon footprint of asset equipment. In addition, there are promising areas such as material recycling and upstream and downstream logistics emission reduction. "We will work together with upstream and downstream partners to achieve energy conservation and emission reduction in the selection of raw materials, the recycling of materials, logistics and transportation." Wang Xiang said that at present, more than 40 of ZTE's leading suppliers have formulated a strategic plan for decarbonization, and in the next 5 to 10 years, most of the supply hopes will come from partners with target commitments. In the process of procurement management, we will actively promote the carbon emissions of suppliers in a variety of ways, and continue to enhance the competitiveness of our supply chain for green, low-carbon and sustainable development.
The "green industry empowerment" considers the extension of ICT technology applications, collaborates with all walks of life, and provides green assistance for more fields with relevant mature energy-saving and emission-reduction solutions. At present, ZTE has joined hands with partners such as operators to provide many industry application solutions, such as smart grid, smart factory, smart car and transportation, etc., all of which have energy saving and emission reduction benefits. In the future, the company will also combine 5G, cloud computing, AI and other technologies to give more ICT elements to the emission reduction of related industries, and continue to broaden the breadth and depth of ICT applications and expand the benefits of emission reduction.
It is reported that at present, ZTE is actually exporting its own products and technologies for some industries such as government affairs, energy, transportation, finance, etc., involving a total of 15 key industries and more than 60 projects, providing assistance for the improvement of quality and efficiency in these industries, energy conservation and emission reduction. For example, the smart factory established by Yunnan Shenhuo Aluminum Co., Ltd. and ZTE in cooperation, relying on the digital base built by ZTE's industrial Internet platform, eliminates the data islands of the company's 27 sets of existing systems, and can monitor more than 10,000 production data in real time, so that the production of aluminum per ton can save more than 100 degrees of electricity. According to its full production scale, the company can save more than 90 million kWh of electricity per year.
Wang Xiang said frankly that the reason why ZTE can participate in the construction of digital projects in these industries is because the company already has the ability of "one base and two wings". The so-called "one base" means that in addition to ICT equipment, it also has a full set of digital transformation bases including basic software, cloud capabilities, chips, and algorithms. The "two wings" refers to the fact that ZTE has not only formed corresponding products and solutions in the process of building the ultimate cloud by the company itself, but also built an ecological partner system with more than 500 enterprises in the industry to achieve the goal of empowering thousands of industries.
Edit: Lin Sen