How Huawei 5G-A Solutions Aim to Drive Telco Transformation

Huawei has unveiled a comprehensive range of solutions to help telecommunications carriers unlock potential from 5G-Advanced networks and AI as the industry seeks new growth avenues.

The company is focusing on network development, operations management and industry-specific digital transformation as carriers evolve beyond traditional revenue models.

Central to this strategy is Huawei’s AI-Centric Network solution, designed to help carriers build infrastructure capable of meeting demands from emerging AI applications. The company has also introduced AI-powered operations and maintenance solutions aimed at achieving L4 autonomous networks for fully intelligent operations.

Li Peng, Huawei's Corporate Senior Vice President and President of ICT Sales & Service, notes that intelligence applications are creating unprecedented demands on networks. “By embracing and evolving 5G, we can unlock the infinite potential of mobile networks,” Li says.

5G-Advanced maturity drives network evolution potential for telcos

The development of 5G-Advanced (5G-A) networks presents new opportunities for telecommunications carriers seeking differentiation. By the end of 2024, more than 2.1 billion 5G users existed worldwide, with numbers continuing to increase.

The standard for 5G-A (3GPP R18) was finalised in June 2024, setting the foundation for widespread adoption. 5G-A networks improve upon existing 5G capabilities, delivering downlink peak data rates exceeding 5 Gbps and uplink rates of 1 Gbps or higher.

More than 10 carriers globally have deployed 5G-A at scale, with eight releasing commercial packages. Sixty carriers have announced 5G-A commercial deployment plans and more than 30 have completed technical verification.

The second release in the 5G-A standard (3GPP R19) is expected to be finalised in 2025, introducing features such as Passive IoT and integrated sensing communications, further extending potential use cases.

Huawei strategy targets transformation from Telco to Techco business models

Yang Chaobin, Huawei’s Director of the Board and CEO of the ICT Business Group, emphasises the transformative potential of the company’s network solutions. “Huawei’s AI-Centric Network solution revolutionises network capabilities to enable all-domain connectivity. It will power a shift towards application-oriented O&M, and will reshape telecom service and business models to take full advantage of new opportunities presented by AI,” Yang says.

The company is positioning itself as a key enabler for carriers transforming from telecommunications providers (telco) to technology companies (techco) – a transition many leading carriers have identified as necessary but remain in early stages of implementation.

Industry research from GSMA and Kearney reveals that mobile network operators make 85% of total investment in mobile internet connectivity infrastructure globally, reaching US$109bn of the US$127bn annual infrastructure investment.

The report highlighted that these investments are made despite operators deriving less economic benefit than other digital ecosystem players such as cloud services providers and content platforms, creating urgency for new revenue models.

Huawei is helping carriers develop these models through projects supporting individualised experiences such as innovative calling features and customised packages. Examples include dedicated livestreaming packages in Thailand and specialised offerings for gamers and livestreamers on public transport in China.

“New network capabilities will give rise to new business models,” Li says. “Carriers can go beyond monetising traffic and start monetising experience itself.”

Huawei AI-to-X approach targets specific domain expansion for carriers

Huawei’s approach to carrier transformation includes its AI-to-X framework, encompassing AI-to-Consumers, AI-to-Businesses, and AI-to-Homes strategies. This framework provides solutions to help carriers expand into AI services for specific domains to achieve business growth.

The company's enterprise division has developed 83 global showcases for industrial digital transformation across 71 key scenarios, demonstrating practical implementation paths.

Leo Chen, Huawei’s Corporate Senior Vice President and President of Enterprise Sales, outlines essential pathways to accelerate intelligent transformation. This includes developing ICT architecture for industrial digital transformation and building advanced AI-oriented infrastructure.

“We must deeply integrate technologies into industry scenarios and build a target ICT architecture for industrial intelligent transformation based on industry requirements, pain points, and development stages,” Chen says.

Huawei has established specialised teams focused on tailoring solutions for different industries. These teams have developed more than 200 solutions for over 20 industries, helping customers bridge technical gaps. Chen states that Huawei has supported the transformation of over 20,000 global enterprises.

For the financial sector, Huawei developed the RAAS target architecture for banking ICT infrastructure. RAAS stands for Reliability, Availability, Autonomy, and Security, aiming to achieve zero trust for security, zero wait for user experience, zero downtime for services and zero touch for maintenance.

One bank that adopted Huawei's resilient data centre solution based on RAAS architecture has tripled system performance, with zero data loss and an annual transaction growth rate exceeding 40%.

In addition to carrier and enterprise solutions, Huawei is pursuing projects that bridge the digital divide, such as its Digital Village Solution. The company collaborated with the Ministry of Technology and Science of Zambia to launch a smart village site in Muchila, Namwala District, featuring infrastructure that brings connectivity to previously unserved communities.

“We need to build advanced, AI-oriented ICT infrastructure to support the exponential growth of AI workloads,” Chen says.

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