UBBF 2024: Huawei’s Bob Chen highlights AI-focused growth in F5.5G all-optical networks

UBBF 2024: Huawei’s Bob Chen highlights AI-focused growth in F5.5G all-optical networks

Huawei Bob Chen (1).png

At the 10th Ultra-Broadband Forum (UBBF 2024) in Istanbul last week, Bob Chen, president of Huawei’s optical business product line, emphasised the pivotal role of artificial intelligence (AI) in transforming the telecoms industry.

In his keynote: "Build AI-Centric F5.5G All-Optical Network for New Growth," Chen outlined the company’s innovations to enhance optical network infrastructure to support AI applications, marking its commitment to accelerating the AI era.

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Chen said "AI is quickly becoming indispensable" across industries and consumer technology, impacting sectors such as travel planning, code generation, and quality inspection.

With over 1,300 AI foundation models already applied globally, Chen foresees an era where “some carriers will transform into AI all-service providers,” while others collaborate with third parties for AI-powered services.

For telecom carriers, robust networks that can handle the demands of AI—including high bandwidth, low latency, and reliability—are crucial.

According to Chen, “AI device-cloud synergy and intelligent computing require advanced network infrastructure. Huawei is continuously innovating F5.5G in optical transmission, optical access, and the management and control platform to build AI-centric all-optical networks.”

In optical transmission, Huawei’s all-optical switching technology is extending into data centres (DCs) and metro edges, enabling better scalability and energy efficiency.

Huawei’s data centre solution now supports large-scale AI operations, expanding capacity to millions of cards and reducing failure rates by around 20% due to its optical module-free deployment.

In metro areas, Chen added: “Huawei helps carriers build latency circles as low as 1ms through mesh networking, delivering seamless AI experiences.”

To date, over 50 global carriers have adopted Huawei’s metro edge optical switching, creating ultra-low-latency networks.

In the optical access field, Chen discussed three key monetisation strategies for fixed broadband: coverage monetisation, bandwidth monetisation, and experience monetisation.

Coverage monetisation, Chen explained, involves expanding fibre to reach the 28% of global users currently lacking access, using Huawei’s QuickConnect ODN and AirPON solutions for rapid deployment.

Bandwidth monetisation involves upgrading fibre broadband from slower speeds to gigabit services to unlock fibre’s full value. Lastly, experience monetisation leverages fibre-to-the-room (FTTR) technology to ensure optimal connectivity, a step already embraced by over 30 million global FTTR users.

As part of its management and control platform, Huawei employs digital twins and AI models to improve user experience and operational efficiency.

Huawei’s Premium Broadband solution provides minute-level fault diagnosis, reducing user complaints by 30%, while its Premium Transmission solution enables faster service launches, cutting time-to-market from months to hours.

"The next decade will witness the fast popularisation of AI. Huawei hopes to work with industry partners to build an AI-centric F5.5G all-optical network to accelerate AI popularisation and achieve new business growth in the intelligent era,” Chen concluded.

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