Huawei's CEO: The Innovation Journey To 5G And Beyond

This is a guest post written by Ken Hu, the deputy chairman and rotating CEO of Huawei Technologies.

According to research released by the Global Mobile Suppliers Association, there are almost 200 fourth generation networks operating commercially across 75 countries today, with a further 200 in progress or in planning worldwide. 4G mobile networks offer internet connections at speeds up to 100 Megabytes using a mobile device, three times faster than third generation technology and represent the latest high-speed route to the digital economy. Analysts at ABI Research, a technology research firm headquartered in New York, estimate that half the world’s population will have access to high speed, 4G mobile networks by 2018.

In the last 20 years, industrial and human behavior have been radically transformed with the advent of the closely-connected digital world, driven by the mobile internet, smart devices and social networks. Despite this unprecedented progress, the digital society is still in its infancy. Today, the internet remains primarily a channel for information acquisition, digital entertainment and e-commerce. ICT technology still serves primarily as a tool to improve human and business efficiency. The next wave of digital society will see the rise of a new kind of intelligence, a connected and shared wisdom. This is why continuous innovation, including the development of ultra-fast 5G networks, is crucially important.But innovation in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry is a continuous journey. While 4G services are still relatively new, Huawei’s R&D teams have been working on developing fifth generation, or 5G, networks for several years with hundreds of engineers working full time on 5G development. We expect that, assuming appropriate spectrum or airwaves can be released, to be able to introduce commercial 5G networks by the year 2020. These 5G networks will offer mobile broadband at speeds of up to 10 Gigabytes, or 100 times the speed of the fastest 4G mobile connections deployed today. Like innovation, acceleration is a key characteristic of the digital society.

The advancement of smart devices has meant personal mobile devices have far exceeded their original ability as basic communications tools to become tools for information gathering and display and now augment our human senses. Wearable devices such as watches and glasses are becoming the new development and fashion trends. Through today’s broadband connected devices, machines are learning to sense and anticipate human behavior and provide context-aware services. These new connected smart devices will help automate the way things get done with levels of intelligence or digital wisdom we have not seen before.

In the past, wisdom came from individual knowledge and from the collective experiences of those around us. Now, computer-aided intelligence is augmenting the capabilities of the human brain. The future will be defined by a new systematic intelligence: human and machine intelligence integrated around big data analytics. This will re-create and redefine the world’s intelligence and wisdom. For businesses, future competitiveness will depend on being able to grasp and use this new wisdom.

Today, we are only beginning to see this new intelligence applied to our daily lives. Real-time data that details the movement of people, cargo, vehicles and routes is being integrated with ICT systems to make intelligent transportation, intelligent supply chains and self-driving vehicles a reality. Similarly, real-time translation is beginning to leverage the power of language and culture, enabling machines to understand the human thought process and break through the barriers of language.

If the digital society brings new opportunities, it also presents new challenges. The biggest challenge faces today’s established, traditional businesses. How do they compete with newcomers armed with a fresh internet mind set and completely different business models to disrupt markets?

These newcomers are often able to go unnoticed as threats to an established business, giving them sufficient time to build their service propositions, their customer base and their revenue. With new business, innovation and operating models, these challengers will quickly transform customer expectations and reach a scale that can be irreversible, leaving traditional companies scrambling and defenseless.

To address this disruptive competition, established businesses must be able to adapt and shift their established and deep-rooted operations. As business leaders, we need to think about today through the lens of tomorrow where the internet is a fundamental, ubiquitous infrastructure like electricity or roads. We need to acknowledge and embrace this restructuring of the world through digital technology.

The transformation of ICT infrastructure is a repositioning of ICT from its role today as an enabling tool into a core business asset that drives innovation and business growth.  The first priority of ICT transformation is network development. As network traffic and complexity grow rapidly, enabled through ever-faster connections, network design needs to be elevated to the next level. This will require transitioning of the network from one based on hard pipes to soft, smart pipes. This software-defined networking (SDN) will lead the development of next-generation ICT architectures capable of offering a compelling user experience based on zero online waiting time. This is the fundamental driving force for these new generation businesses. It is also a key business case driver of ubiquitous and accelerating broadband services.

Another important aspect for ICT infrastructure transformation is a business’ IT systems. Businesses need to redefine their IT system architectures based on big data and cloud computing because traditional client-server architectures can no longer support the exponential growth of data. The growth of data and the wisdom this data contains is revolutionizing the way business operates and supports customers.

The digital society is just 20 years old. Its achievements so far have been staggering, but there is still much more it can and will deliver. The next wave of digital society will bring us even greater wonders and make our work and lives more efficient, intelligent and convenient. Now is the time for established businesses to begin to prepare for the future because an entire global ecosystem is ready to embrace this digital restructuring and create new connecting possibilities for mankind.