Wang Xiang, CSO of ZTE: Digital reality is integrated, intelligent connection and symbiosis, and high-quality development of the industry is jointly promoted

On the eve of the 2024 China International Information and Communication Exhibition will be held at the China National Convention Center in Beijing from September 25 to 27, and on the eve of the exhibition, Wang Xiang, Chief Strategy Officer of ZTE, was invited to be a guest on CCTV's "Central Meeting with · The special interview column talks about the forward-looking insights of the information and communication industry, and elaborates on ZTE's latest development strategy in the era of artificial intelligence.

What will ZTE exhibit at this year's China International Information and Communication Exhibition (PT Exhibition)?

"ZTE will give more prominence to the combination of digital and real in this exhibition, on the one hand, the progress of infrastructure, and on the other hand, the integration with the industry."

Wang Xiang pointed out that ZTE was founded in 1985, and the China International Information and Communication Exhibition (PT Exhibition), which began in 1990, has witnessed every leap in China's communications industry, and in the process, ZTE has also experienced its own growth and development. At this year's PT Exhibition, ZTE will bring the progress of underlying core technology innovation in network connection and computing power, the practice and achievements of digital-real integration, and the multi-form AI terminal of the whole queue with the theme of "Digital-Reality Integration and Intelligent Connectivity Symbiosis".

He emphasized that this year is a more distinctive year in the post-5G era, on the one hand, ZTE continues to promote innovation along the evolution of its own technical route; On the other hand, the essence of technology development is to better serve the industry and the public, therefore, at this year's PT exhibition, ZTE will also set up a special area to show the application of technology in the industry. For example, in terms of connectivity, the role of 5G-A synaesthesia technology in low-altitude communication and airspace supervision will be demonstrated on site, and real-time interaction with the Yanqing field in Beijing will be carried out to watch the trajectory monitoring of drones in real time; At the same time, 50G PON technology has promoted the advent of the 10 Gigabit era, and the booth will also promote the rich practice of 50G PON in AR/VR teaching, distance education, industrial production video quality inspection and other fields. In addition, ZTE will place more emphasis on the combination of artificial intelligence and industry at this exhibition, and promote the application of artificial intelligence in the core business of enterprises, such as the combination of code and related applications.

In the face of the rapid development of the AI trend, how will ZTE strategically promote the field of artificial intelligence?

"Artificial intelligence is one of the core strategies of ZTE's development, and the company is accelerating its expansion from full connectivity to connection + computing power."

Talking about the current rapid development of AI trends, Wang Xiang elaborated on ZTE's strategic deployment in the field of artificial intelligence, and said that in the field of artificial intelligence, ZTE will comprehensively launch the expansion of intelligent computing from many aspects such as "intelligent computing infrastructure and platform technology, large models and applications, and application ecology".

"At the infrastructure level, ZTE mainly focuses on technological progress, and is committed to the comprehensive evolution of the overall solution, with strong computing with the network, and open decoupling to make the infrastructure develop well under the new artificial intelligence system." He explained, "But technology must eventually be combined with the industry, so at the industry level, on the one hand, we need to solve the problem of R&D and development speed, especially the decoupling of large models between different hardware, so as to greatly improve the development speed; On the other hand, it is how to promote the practical application of large models in the industry, especially in enterprises. ”

In terms of large models, Wang Xiang specifically mentioned ZTE's self-developed R&D model: "ZTE is a R&D innovative enterprise, more than 50% of employees are R&D personnel, and among the R&D personnel, more than 80% are software personnel. ”

In terms of application ecology, he emphasized that ZTE has established the Cloud AI Open Intelligent Computing Lab to provide multi-vendor GPU interconnection, optimization, and large model compatibility testing and certification, and hopes to work with industry partners to actively promote the construction of open intelligent computing infrastructure and application ecology in China.

What are the R&D plans and business strategies for the future of 6G technology?

"6G is not a castle in the air, but has developed on the solid foundation of 5G and 5G-A."

Wang Xiang said that at present, the development of 6G has moved from the concept, vision and definition stage to the development of the actual model, and in the next few years, it will start from the certification of technical routes and the certification of technical product prototypes, and gradually realize the transformation of 6G from vision to reality.

In terms of core technology, ZTE is also making continuous progress, committed to continuously improving performance and efficiency on the basis of existing technology, and striving to achieve two orders of magnitude improvement on the current technical level. At the same time, the application of artificial intelligence is also the focus of the combination with 6G technology, and ZTE will be committed to integrating AI technology with traditional communication technology to greatly improve the efficiency of communication systems.

In addition, ZTE also called on the industry to adhere to the globalization route in terms of standard collaboration, technical cooperation, industrial collaboration and openness, which is the best way to realize the beautiful vision of 6G.

How will ZTE use technology empowerment to promote consumption reduction and low carbon?

"Low-carbon has become a definite trend in the world, and ZTE launched research and development in the field of low-carbon several years ago."

"Since the establishment of the project in 2019, we have gradually promoted the process of digitalization, intelligence and automation within the company, accurately managed the automation and control of specific rooms and equipment, and in the past few years, we have reduced carbon emissions by more than 6 percentage points per year with a compound annual growth rate of more than 8%, based on which our energy consumption indicators have been significantly improved, and we have been recognized by CDP A rating." ”

In addition, ZTE not only focuses on its own low-carbon transformation, but also is committed to strengthening the low-carbon cycle of the entire industrial chain: "We have put forward relevant requirements for the upstream of the industrial chain, and implemented low-carbon research in the whole process of manufacturing, using and recycling production equipment. For our customers, we are committed to providing higher performance products that help them reduce their carbon footprint in their operations. He said that as an early pioneer in the low-carbon field, ZTE has accumulated a lot of valuable experience, and the company hopes to share this experience with partners to jointly promote the sustainable development of the entire industry.

In the face of the ever-changing industry development, how will ZTE adapt to and lead these changes?

"In the future information industry, networking, intelligence and low-carbon will be the eternal trend."

Talking about the future development trend of the industry, Wang Xiang said that from the perspective of networking, the most basic task is still to continuously improve the performance indicators of the network, and the communication industry has achieved about two orders of magnitude of improvement in technology every ten years. Therefore, in terms of the most basic underlying innovation, on the one hand, we are committed to technological innovation to improve efficiency, on the other hand, to achieve the ubiquity of the network, the traditional communication facilities are often concentrated in densely populated areas, and in the future, we need to expand communication to a wider area, including remote mountainous areas, core areas used by factories and other application scenarios, so that communication is ubiquitous, and combined with satellite technology, we will achieve air-to-air, air-to-ground and ground-to-air all-round coverage. In addition, communication is multi-functional, which used to be only used as a carrier for information transmission, but in the future, communication will also be used as an observation point for information, and in addition to transmitting information like the human nervous system, it will also have functions similar to the human eye and hand, and will be able to perceive the outside world.

In terms of intelligence, he stressed that our short-term goal remains to enhance the competitiveness of our infrastructure. To this end, on the one hand, ZTE is committed to sharing and synergistically developing domestic computing infrastructure platforms through the method of "open decoupling"; On the other hand, through the method of "strong computing by network", the problem of insufficient single-point computing power of computing power is solved, and the super computing power of Wanka cluster is realized. In addition, it is equally important to solve the problem of R&D and experimental efficiency, and to involve more people and more ecosystems through model decoupling to promote group innovation and ultimately apply it to industrial practice.

He also mentioned that low-carbon is also ZTE's core pursuit: "We often say that the end point of computing power is energy, so in terms of low-carbonization, we will continue to improve the energy efficiency of our products and improve efficiency in the whole process of production, manufacturing, use and recycling." Through these circular means, the use of equipment is greener and more low-carbon, and a better environment is created for the society. To this end, in the future, ZTE will conduct comprehensive research and development in terms of network, computing power and low-carbon energy, and ZTE also hopes to take advantage of the opportunity of this China International Information and Communication Exhibition to discuss with the industry and jointly promote the high-quality development of the industry. ”