On September 25, the 2024 International Information and Communication Exhibition opened in Beijing, ZTE brought innovative products and solutions in the field of "connection + computing power" with the theme of "Digital Reality Integration, Intelligent Connectivity and Symbiosis", and at the same time, ZTE Chief Strategy Officer Wang Xiang was invited to attend the "ICT High-level Forum and China International Information and Communication Exhibition Opening Forum", and shared ZTE's thinking and practice in computing network integration, digital intelligence compatibility, and intelligent connectivity symbiosis with the theme of "Computing Network Strong Foundation, Digital Intelligence Upgrade".
Grasp the rhythm of the ICT cycle and accelerate the two-wheel drive of technology and market
Wang Xiang said that from the perspective of the general trend of the times, the development of the digital economy has become a global consensus, and the scale and proportion of the digital economy also occupy an important position. Although the progress in the early stage has been rapid, there are also challenges at present. For example, early leading enterprises pay more attention to the advancement and differentiation of products, but ordinary enterprises in the middle and late stages pay more attention to cost and efficiency, which requires readjusting product positioning and market channels to cross the gap. At present, we are at the bottom of the Jugra cycle, asset investment is at a low point, but the industry transformation is at its peak, and this mismatch between the peak demand and the investment trough has affected the difficulty and speed of our crossing the chasm; In addition, we have to cross the inflection point of scale, the intensification of the game between the East and the West has led to the regionalization of the global market, so that products and services that can be sold globally to spread costs more quickly can only be limited to specific regions, and the broad market segmentation has also reduced the size of a single market, these two major factors have hindered the industry to achieve economies of scale, and the combined effect of these factors has increased the difficulty of crossing the chasm.
As for how to deal with these challenges, he said that in general, the ICT industry is in the process of continuous innovation, and every upgrade and evolution of infrastructure such as network and computing will further deepen and expand new application scenarios, which in turn will stimulate innovation and form a cycle of iteration. For example, among the major elements of the Internet of Things, such as sensing, communication, computing, and control, sensing and control are closer to the terminal, and their development is distributed, while network and computing power are centralized. In this process, our core strategy should be to "follow the trend", actively grasp the rhythm of the ICT industry cycle, accelerate the two-wheel drive of technology and market, and implement relevant actions around different stages of the cycle to cross the industry inflection point and open a new growth curve.
Focusing on the four dimensions of "network, computing, use, and innovation", we will create a new era of digital intelligence
Wang Xiang elaborated on the four dimensions of network, computing, use and creation, he said, "network" solves the problem of information accessibility, such as the deployment of 5G basic implementation in the early stage, and the post-5G era, one direction is the popularization and application of 5G basic scenarios in subdivided industries, mainly from three aspects, one is to start with terminals that affect the cost of a large proportion, and provide customers with hundreds of more economical industry terminals through the balance and trade-off of performance and cost in different industries; The second is to provide customers with a more flexible network combination by combining multiple technologies of the industrial field network instead of relying on a single technology; Third, through the digital Nebula development platform, the experience of thousands of cases in the past is modularized, empowering industry partners, lowering the entry threshold for development and improving the speed of development, so as to provide customers with faster application development.
ZTE has launched the evolution of 5G-A, providing the industry's highest ultra-5Gbps link through stronger ubiquitous 10 Gigabit, achieving sub-meter sensing accuracy with more accurate synaesthesia, and realizing the comprehensive solution of HAPS third plane + ATG + NTN with a wider space-air-ground integration to meet the application needs of vertical domains, convergence and hotspots, so that more application scenarios can be realized.
With the continuous evolution of the network, the capabilities and cycles of computing power and the network gradually tend to be synchronized, especially after the introduction of artificial intelligence, the balance between the network and computing power becomes more important, and it becomes difficult to improve the single-point computing power due to the limited manufacturing process. By promoting Olink interconnection, providing ultra-large network switching, and long-distance 400G transmission, we can build a multi-level and large-scale cluster network to maximize the ultimate performance of computing power and AI.
On the one hand, ZTE uses "open decoupling of software and hardware" to allow devices and platforms to consider compatible designs, support diversified computing power, and provide users with the best cost-effective computing services. On the other hand, in order to solve the problem of high cost of intelligent computing construction, convert more computing power into actual value, and promote business closed-loop, it is necessary to launch smaller devices with simultaneous training and promotion. At the same time, it has created an intelligent computing solution and architecture of "training and decoupling", promoted the componentization of capabilities, and allowed "professional people to do professional things" to build a win-win industrial ecosystem. In addition, he mentioned that in order to accelerate the popularization and application of AI in enterprises, we need to grasp the key elements that have the greatest impact on enterprises, focus on key scenarios, and accelerate value monetization. Taking ZTE as an example, ZTE is a R&D and innovative enterprise, about 50% of its employees are R&D personnel, and more than 80% of R&D personnel are software personnel. To this end, ZTE has created a Nebula R&D model to help improve the efficiency of AI in the whole process of R&D, and at present, the model has helped the company improve the efficiency of coding by 30% and the overall R&D efficiency by 10%.
On the one hand, the core purpose of network, computing and other infrastructure is to reduce hardware costs and improve hardware selectivity, but for the industry, how to better and faster develop a platform based on its own business processes at the software level is crucial, for this reason, ZTE has refined thousands of cases accumulated in the early stage and formed a corresponding template. It enables customers to quickly build their internal business processes through combination and efficiently realize business construction.
On the other hand, the current integration of connectivity and computing power is gradually deepening, and we need to continuously expand the capability boundaries of "connection + computing power", and realize the two-way flow of technology + business with the two-wheel drive of 5G + AI. He specifically mentioned the Nanjing Smart Binjiang 5G factory built by ZTE, and said that the development and changes of the Binjiang factory from 2019 to 2024 well reflect the continuous evolution of 5G and intelligent computing empowerment.
He also emphasized that in order to support the iterative development of the industry, it is necessary to continue to promote breakthroughs in underlying core technologies and build a "hard foundation" for the development of digital intelligence. At present, China's society is also in the process of building a foundation from a demographic dividend, expanding to an engineer dividend, and upgrading to an innovation dividend in the future, among which the most basic indicator to measure change is the intensity of scientific research investment, that is, the proportion of R&D investment. In 2023, ZTE's R&D investment of more than 20% will rank first among A-share 100 billion large listed companies.
In addition, in recent years, there has been a significant increase in global attention to corporate ESG, and ESG rating standards not only evaluate a company's performance in environmental, social and corporate governance, but also reflect the expectations of investors and society for corporate sustainability and social responsibility. He pointed out that ZTE has been committed to integrating ESG concepts into all aspects of corporate governance and operation to promote the harmonious coexistence of society, environment and stakeholders, and in his speech, he focused on ZTE's practice in green development: "Since 2019, ZTE has launched research in the field of low-carbon internally, promoting energy conservation and carbon reduction internally and empowering the industry externally, and this year, the company stood out from more than 21,000 outstanding companies around the world. CDP, an international environmental non-profit organization, has achieved a leading position in the corporate transparency and climate change performance ratings, and has been awarded the highest 'A' rating in CDP in 2023, ranking in the top 2% of all participating companies in the world, and is also one of only two companies in China to receive an A rating. ”
At the end of the speech, Wang Xiang said that we are in a new era of digital intelligence, and the deterministic trend of networking, intelligence, and low-carbon is irreversible, but we are also facing the challenge of crossing the cycle. Industry and ecological partners will work together to create a new era of digital intelligence.