Huawei outlined its continued push to drive 5G Advanced during its Mobile Broadband Forum (MBBF) last month, noting that AI has a crucial role to play in this.

During the event, which was held in Istanbul, Turkey, the Chinese vendor spoke of the importance for network carriers to prepare for the AI era.

Huawei has pushed the notion of 5.5G, otherwise known as 5G Advanced, heavily in the past 12 months.

Back in February, the company paired with Malaysian telco Maxis to complete the first 5G-Advanced technology trial in the country and Southeast Asia.

According to Huawei rotating chairman, Ken Hu, 5.5G is pivotal for the AI era.

“In the future, AI will change everything. Everyone will be able to use it, anytime and anywhere,” said Hu.

The Huawei executive added that “mobile networks and devices will play an important role to make that happen, just like what we have done to enable telephones and mobile Internet as a universal service,” and noted that the early commercial rollout of 5G Advanced coincides with the first year of AI adoption in various devices is tremendously significant.

During the event, Turkcell's CEO, Dr. Ali Taha Koç, stated his belief that the technology is a key ladder to the next generation of technology, expected to launch around the end of this decade, 6G.

"We need to be clear and very precise about this, 5G is not an upgrade," said Koç. "It's a new phase in which we will connect intelligence. With 5G we start to connect intelligence.

"The value of 5.5G technology is that it's a step towards 6G and the future of communication. So we need to use 5.5G in the ladder to 6G, while we must continue to invest in private technology, in coalition with our mobile and public institution partners."

Alex Sinclair, chief technology officer at GSMA, added that because of 5.5G, it's possible for the telecoms industry to begin leveraging AI more effectively.

Sinclair said that it's no coincidence that AI and 5.5G have taken off at the same time. He expects AI to support specific use cases such as Edge computing, the usage of drones, and enhanced satellite productivity.

Prepare for AI networks of the future

By 2028, global AI smartphone shipments will reach more than 900 million units, according to analyst firm IDC.

Although that's a few years away, Huawei corporate senior vice president and president of ICT sales and service, Li Peng, said that the industry must put the building blocks in place now.

“Moving forward, there are two things we can do to capitalize on new opportunities in the mobile AI era,” said Li.

“First, we should prepare our networks to support AI. That means boosting network capabilities, especially uplink, latency, and capacity. Second, we can use AI to support our networks. With more complex networks, we can use AI to help automate O&M, optimize network efficiency, and guarantee a solid user experience.”

During his keynote, Li outlined some ambitious AI use cases likely to arrive in the upcoming decade, including AI agents, which operate as personal AI agents at home, work, or for travel.

"By 2030, most people will have a personal AI agent to help at home, work, and for travel. These assistants will work nonstop, generating and processing over 10 times more data than we do today," he explained.

"In industry, AI robots will play a key role in R&D, production, QA, and logistics. And each robot will process more than 10GB of data per hour. In total, by 2030, AI agents will process 120 times more data than we do today."

The demands of such use cases will reshape how data is processed. He notes that data will be more personalized and will flow in multiple directions, as opposed to a more linear model.

Providing an example, Li said that training large models requires super-fast transmission between data centers.

"At the same time, AI applications and AIGC need to transmit data between Edge, cloud, and devices. So we’re going to see a rise in east-west traffic, and even mesh connections between multiple types of devices and hosts. With the structural changes in traffic models, network optimization will be more critical than ever.

"We need to provide larger uplink bandwidth, deterministic latency, and more reliable network capabilities to meet these new service requirements."