By Daniel Shepherd

The 2024 edition of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world’s leading trade fair for mobile technology and ICT products and solutions for all sectors and industries, opened in Barcelona, Spain, on Monday Feb 26th.

Huawei, one of the event sponsors and key exhibiters is showcasing its latest carrier-, enterprise-, and device-domain products and solutions at stand 1H50 in Fira Gran Via Hall 1. As part of its ecosystem business strategy and collaboration for shared success approach, the company is organizing many forums and summits in collaboration with its partners and customers, in addition to hosting discussions on key topics such as the positive 5G business cycles, commercial 5.5G, and the future of intelligent transformation in light of coordinated innovations in networks, cloud, and intelligence.

Industry experts, key opinion leaders, and leading operators are joining Huawei to explore new opportunities for industry digital transformation and ecosystem development that will help create a bright future for the intelligent world. Customers and partners from the Middle East and Central Asia region are actively present at MWC24 and dynamically participating in Huawei events and activities, in addition to having a co-presence with the company in display areas with the latest products and solutions in different domains, especially in the telecom networks advanced technologies and solutions represented in 5G and its next midway generation 5.5G supported with cloud and AI capabilities.

Technological innovation in the telecom industry has historically resulted in more productive operator networks, but also increased service demands. 5.5G has delivered stronger network capabilities that are supporting the emergence of more diversified services and more business success for operators. The industry expects a significant technological transformation to occur soon as these services need higher-level intelligence that features agile service provisioning, accurate user experience assurance, and efficient O&M across domains.

By the end of 2023, more than 300 5G commercial networks had been launched worldwide, serving more than 1.6 billion users. 5G development is now well underway, with the growth rate of global 5G users reaching seven times higher than that of 4G users in the same period. Operators using Huawei solutions ranked No. 1 regarding network experience during the 2023 testing by a well-known organization in key cities in Germany, Austria, and Netherlands. Huawei has also collaborated with world-leading operators and industry partners to find innovative solutions to meet higher requirements of new 5.5G applications and scenarios. Together, they have promoted 5.5G technology verification and network deployment, expanding the nascent 5.5G market.

Huawei’s Board Member and President of ICT Products & Solutions Yang Chaobin launched the industry’s first telecom foundation model which provides key intelligent technologies that support service innovation, improve operations efficiency, revolutionize network productivity, and realize 5.5G intelligence objectives. Yang called on industry partners to advance applications of this intelligent technology through collaborative industry promotion, talent training, and business scenario innovation. He also encouraged the telecom foundation model sector to nurture best practices and bring more intelligence to the telecom industry.

Huawei has already helped operators start 5.5G commercial verification and testing in more than 20 cities around the world. The Middle East has formed a general consensus on 5.5G development, with all six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) having completed 5.5G 10 Gbps rate verification and incubation of new services such as RedCap and passive IoT.

5.5G is expected to see commercial launch in 2024, and Huawei at MWC 24 has reaffirmed its commitment to working with operators around the world to explore the evolution to 5.5G. The company aims to help build ubiquitous networks that are efficient, collaborative, green, stable, and intelligent so that operators can deliver premium experience. Such industry collaboration will take intelligent digital transformation to deeper levels and lead us to an intelligent world faster.

The 1st day of the event witnessed Huawei unveiling 8 5.5G innovation practices to help operators build 5.5G multi-path target networks. Cao Ming, President of Huawei Wireless Solution, remarked that ” As all industry elements are ready, we have entered the first year of 5.5G commercialization. Huawei’s full series of 5.5G products and solutions, with ‘Native Giga’ and ‘Native Green’ capabilities, help operators from around the world to achieve multipath 5.5G evolution across all bands”.

Huawei also held a new product solution launch event, where George Gao, President of Huawei Cloud Core Network Product Line, released the 5.5G intelligent core network solution. 2024 is the first year for commercialisation of 5.5G, with the 5.5G intelligent core network, as an important part of 5.5G, incorporating service intelligence, network intelligence, and O&M intelligence. 5.5G technology will improve both business value and development potential.

The company enterprise business will unveil new intelligent digital solutions for 10 industries and a series of flagship products under the theme “Leading Infrastructure to Accelerate Industrial Intelligence”. The company is eager to join hands with its customers and partners around the world to explore innovations and practices in intelligent digital transformation. Huawei is committed to becoming the most reliable partner for intelligent digital transformation across industries.

Huawei also hosted a number of global operators, industry partners, and opinion leaders for discussions on future network-cloud-intelligence synergy at its “Advance Intelligence” showcase. The company aims to promote the intelligent digital transformation across industries, build a thriving industry ecosystem, accelerate the positive business cycle of 5G, and prepare for the upcoming 5.5G era.

One day before the official opening of MWC24, Huawei organized Cloud Summit which demonstrated how Huawei Cloud is the infrastructure of choice for AI applications. With the theme of “Accelerate Intelligence with Everything as a Service,” the 500-strong event brought together executives and experts from diverse industries, such as carrier, finance, and more. Huawei Cloud presented 10 AI-oriented innovations and extensive industry expertise in Pangu models. The objective is an AI-ready infrastructure tailored to each industry for a faster journey towards intelligence. Feb 25th also hosted Huawei 5G Beyond Growth Summit. Li Peng, Huawei’s Corporate Senior Vice President and President of ICT Sales & Service, discussed how carriers can achieve business success in 5G and how 5.5G will further unlock the potential of networks and create new growth opportunities.

At the MWC24, the company is set to make more announcement in the telecom networks, Cloud, AI, and green ICT for carriers and other industries represented in its Digital Power business unit aligning with the UN SDGs, governments and businesses net zero carbon commitments.