How will 5G-A integrate with AI? Huawei MBBF2024 will give the answer
Latest update time：2024-11-07
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2024 is an extremely important year for the entire ICT industry.
On the one hand, with the official freeze of the 3GPP R18 standard, we have fully entered the 5G-A era and ushered in the large-scale commercial use of this new technical standard. On the other hand, after experiencing the hustle and bustle of the "hundred-model war", mainstream manufacturers in the industry have begun to focus on application implementation and accelerate the delivery of generative AI capabilities to end users and vertical industries.
In other words,
this year is not only the first year of 5G-A commercialization, but also the first year of AI "entry"
. These two highly anticipated cutting-edge technologies have coincidentally "collided" with each other under the impetus of the times.
So, what kind of sparks will this collision produce? Facing the surging new wave of AI, what can 5G-A do? And what can it gain?
From October 30 to 31, the 2024 Global Mobile Broadband Forum (Global MBB Forum 2024) with the theme of "5G-A Leading the Mobile AI Era" opened in Istanbul, Turkey. Global operators and industry partners discussed topics such as how to maximize the value of the network in the mobile AI era and how to define key network indicators for the mobile AI infrastructure network.
During the forum, Cao Ming, Vice President of Huawei and President of the Wireless Network Product Line, expressed his unique insights on the integration of 5G-A and AI. His blockbuster announcement of Huawei's top ten 5G-A product solutions attracted the attention of the entire industry.
Cao Ming said:
"The mobile AI era is changing our lives, and new connected services are placing higher demands on networks. Huawei's 5G-Aᴬ 10 product solutions build the ultimate multi-dimensional network capabilities with a full range of Advanced Radio, achieve full-domain site digitization with Ambient Site, and help operators' networks move towards L4 advanced self-intelligence with the Agent digital human team, meeting the diverse business needs of the mobile AI era."
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AI opens a new stage, 5G-A ushers in valuable opportunities
"Using the Internet to promote intelligence" and "Using intelligence to empower the Internet" are two terms that Cao Ming mentioned repeatedly during his speech.
In the past year, "AI on the edge" has become a recognized technology development trend and has made remarkable progress. Not only have chip manufacturers launched chips with AI computing power, but mobile phone manufacturers have also rushed to launch new mobile phones with large models on the edge. Apps with AI functions have exploded, with the number reaching more than 3 million, exceeding the total number of all other apps in traditional app stores.
According to industry forecasts, global AI terminal shipments will reach 170 million units by the end of 2024. The proportion of AI-enabled terminal devices in the Chinese market will exceed 70%.
From industrial smart manufacturing to smart driving, from smart homes to smart cities, almost all fields are actively embracing AI, seeking to leverage the empowerment of AI to reconstruct business models and improve scenario efficiency.
AI "entry" will bring about important changes in three aspects: human-computer interaction experience, mobile service model and data traffic model.
It will not only generate higher network connection requirements for traditional business scenarios, but also incubate new scenarios.
For example, the popularity of interactive AI applications on mobile phones, and the rich applications derived from them, such as AI digital human dialogue, AI photo recognition, and AI real-time translation, will bring about further growth in mobile traffic. In intelligent driving scenarios, in order to transmit massive amounts of training data, to achieve accurate recognition and extremely fast response, the network needs to have higher bandwidth and lower latency.
This is both a challenge and an opportunity for mobile communication networks, and the emergence of 5G-A is absolutely timely.
As an evolved and enhanced version of 5G technology, 5G-A can bring higher bandwidth, lower latency and stronger connectivity, perfectly meeting the needs of "AI entry" and providing strong support for AI to enter the "mobile AI era".
In addition to performance improvements, 5G-A also introduces numerous capability upgrades including interawareness and Passive-IoT, which greatly expands the application scenarios of the network and promotes the digital transformation of more industries.
It is particularly worth mentioning that 5G-A not only facilitates the full implementation of AI, but also accepts the empowerment of AI in reverse. We can see AI in all aspects of 5G-A networks. For example, by introducing AI, high-level network autonomy is achieved, which can improve the network's self-healing ability and resource utilization. For another example, in the wireless air interface, by introducing AI, the algorithm efficiency can be effectively improved, network coverage can be enhanced, and user experience can be improved.
This is what Cao Ming meant by “using the Internet to promote intelligence” and “empowering the Internet with intelligence”.
5G-A and AI have formed a "mutual promotion and spiral upward" relationship.
The deep integration between the two will accelerate the evolution of each other and greatly speed up our pace into the true digital intelligence era.
█Ten
solutions to help network upgrade in all aspects
Next, we will focus on interpreting the top ten product solutions of Huawei 5G-Aᴬ released by Cao Ming.
As a leading global provider of ICT infrastructure and intelligent terminals, Huawei has extensive experience in wireless network construction and is well aware of the pain points and difficulties faced in existing network construction and operation and maintenance.
The integrated development of 5G-A and AI will ultimately be achieved through product solutions. So, how does Huawei integrate its deep technical accumulation into solutions to help operators build a mobile AI basic network with stronger performance and higher efficiency to meet the challenges of the AI era?
Let’s take a closer look at the specific content of these plans and find the answers from them.
1. The industry's first Sub-1GHz M-MIMO, building the ubiquitous foundation layer in the mobile AI era.
The first solution is Massive-MIMO (massive antenna array technology) for Sub-1GHz (frequency band below 1GHz). Sub-1GHz has always been called the golden frequency band, with extremely strong coverage capabilities, which is conducive to low-cost network construction. However, the frequency band resources of Sub-1GHz are precious, and it is often difficult to achieve higher connection speeds.
Huawei's solution brings M-MIMO technology to low frequencies for the first time, which can well meet the general deployment requirements of site engineering, significantly improve network uplink and downlink connection rates, and reduce latency. This is of great significance to operators' low-frequency network construction, and can meet the needs of full-standard access, full-connection IoT, and full real-time service assurance in the mobile AI era.
2. The industry's only full-band Sub6GHz solution, enabling simplified deployment of M-MIMO on a single antenna.
After decades of development, mobile communications have seen an increase in operating modes and frequency bands, which has also led to more complex antenna surfaces. Multiple antennas are often required to achieve full coverage of the frequency band. This not only takes up more antenna space, but also increases the difficulty of deployment.
Huawei's Blade AAU X is the first single-antenna full-band M-MIMO. In other words, with just one antenna, it can support M-MIMO in all frequency bands.
This solution not only brings the ultimate network performance, but also greatly reduces the difficulty of deployment. Compared with the traditional deployment method, it realizes single-pole ultra-simple deployment, saves 50% of site space, and reduces OPEX (operating expenses) by 70%. At the same time, the solution realizes one pole to support GHz ultra-large bandwidth, maximizing spectrum efficiency.
3. The industry's first U6GHz AAU, achieving 10G continuous coverage.
The third solution is Huawei's U6GHz AAU antenna. Based on 1500+ arrays and leading MU-MIMO algorithms, U6GHz AAU can achieve 100Gbps capacity and 10Gbps user experience through software and hardware collaboration. Indoors, U6GHz AAU coverage is aligned with C-band, which can achieve continuous Gbps experience indoors.
4. LampSite introduces P-IoT capabilities for the first time, enabling digital and intelligent upgrades for all indoor scenarios.
LampSite is Huawei's flagship product in the field of indoor coverage and has a high market share in China. LampSite X is Huawei's 5G-A product for indoor use, which brings the ultimate capabilities of 5G-A to indoor scenarios for the first time, achieving a comprehensive upgrade of indoor digitalization.
This solution has the outstanding features of the industry's smallest size, lightest weight, simplest deployment, and lowest energy consumption. It can not only achieve a 10G experience (10Gbps), but also achieve multi-dimensional capability upgrades. Passive-IoT, as a representative feature of 5G-A, is one of the upgraded capabilities of LampSite X.
LampSite X has been applied in scenarios such as warehouse inventory management. Compared with traditional solutions, it can improve delivery efficiency by 50% and reduce inventory counting cycles from monthly to daily.
5. The industry's lightest AAU, enabling simplified deployment of medium-frequency and large-bandwidth.
Easy AAU, as the name suggests, is a lightweight and simple active antenna product. It is the lightest in the industry, half the weight of the traditional 8T RRU.
The ultra-light weight makes it very easy to deploy in urban hanging scenarios and suburban simple pole-mounted scenarios. According to estimates, Easy AAU can shorten the deployment time by 40% and double the network capacity.
6. The industry's first integrated microwave antenna solution solves the problem of antenna deployment in all scenarios.
This solution is mainly aimed at mobile communication base station scenarios based on microwave backhaul. Huawei's IAM (Integrated Microwave Antenna) can integrate base station antennas with E-band microwave units, reducing the weight of a box by 30% and the antenna surface by 50%. At the same time, the microwave antenna supports full-beam automatic direction finding, reducing maintenance costs.
7. The industry's first full-duplex microwave enables further upgrades in network transmission capabilities.
This solution is also aimed at microwave scenarios. Huawei's MAGICSwave is based on typical microwave application scenarios such as large capacity in urban areas and long distance in suburban areas, and introduces industry-leading technical innovations such as full-band new 2T, true broadband ultra-long distance, and ultra-high integration unified platform.
MAGICSwave has achieved the first full-duplex, which can bring a 2-fold improvement in spectrum efficiency and a capacity of up to 50Gbps through ultra-isolated antennas and interference elimination algorithms. This solution can fully meet the massive data transmission needs of the mobile AI era and help operators build an efficient 5G bearer platform.
8. The industry’s first One Box rural network solution, connecting the unconnected.
RuralStar and RuralLink launched by Huawei are extremely simple and easy-to-deploy wireless solutions for rural and other remote areas. The solutions can achieve universal coverage at extremely low cost and power consumption, connect the unconnected, and bridge the digital divide.
RuralCOW is a further upgrade based on RuralStar and RuralLink. Through the RF integrated wireless fronthaul One Box, it achieves no backhaul, no BBU, and no main power supply, which greatly reduces the cost of site construction and meets the needs of multi-standard deployment in remote suburbs.
9. The industry's first Agent digital human team helps the network move towards high-level self-intelligence.
The ninth solution is a classic example of Huawei's "Intelligent Networking". Their Agent digital human team, built based on RAN Intelligent Agent, has currently incubated four types of digital human experts.
These digital human experts integrate Huawei's rich network maintenance experience and can help operators achieve unmanned maintenance, real-time network optimization, all-weather energy saving, and accurate business evaluation. This is a major innovation in network operation and maintenance, which will greatly improve network operation and maintenance efficiency and reduce cost investment.
10. The unique fully digital site makes the entire site visible, perceptible and controllable.
Ambient Site is an important innovation of Huawei in the full-area digitalization of base stations. With it, the main equipment of the base station, BBU, RRU, antenna, and supporting systems such as power supply and transmission in the entire site can be coordinated and linked, and the operation status of the entire site can be fully understood in a visible, perceptible and controllable way, so as to achieve the best operation of the base station, optimize network energy saving and improve user experience.
Through the above interpretation, you should have discovered that the ten solutions are all innovations targeting the details of mobile communication scenarios, covering all aspects of wireless networks. Each solution has been deeply considered from the perspective of operators, which can help operators reconstruct the network operation and maintenance model and create greater business value. At the same time, it also helps to improve user experience and enjoy the digital dividend.
Huawei has sent a very clear signal that it will take the commercial deployment of 5G-A as an opportunity to build more advanced network base capabilities to meet the more challenging connection scenario requirements of the entire industry in the mobile AI era.
█Written
at the end
Since the beginning of this year, the commercial use of 5G-A has made significant progress.
In China, operators such as China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom have already launched 5G-A commercial deployment in multiple cities. China Mobile plans to launch 5G-A commercial deployment in more than 300 cities by 2024, and strive to achieve full commercialization of 5G-A by the end of 2026.
Overseas, operators such as Saudi Arabia's Zain and UAE's du have launched the world's first 5G-A networks. Operators in Europe and North America are also actively verifying the capabilities of 5G-A and preparing for commercial use.
At MBBF2024, GSMA Chief Technology Officer Alex Sinclair noted that
more than 50% of operators plan to launch some form of 5G-A within a year of the release of the R18 standard
. And as the technology expands, this number will grow rapidly -
by 2027, 5G-A is expected to become a mainstream wireless technology.
We look forward to 5G-A continuing to keep pace with AI and accelerating the advancement of human society into a more prosperous digital era.
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