From building sustainable projects to deploying smart technologies that address everyday urban challenges, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming essential for digital transformation. It is only a matter of time before AI becomes the core digital infrastructure across sectors such as education, healthcare, finance, and manufacturing. Moreover, the information and communication technology (ICT) industry as a whole will play a crucial role in advancing the digital transformation agenda.
In this evolving intelligence-driven environment, telecom networks are growing increasingly complex, requiring significant customization to meet diverse and evolving needs. To maximize 5G investments and enhance return on investment (ROI) while improving consumer experiences, the telecom sector must harness AI's potential to generate growth from new revenue streams through innovative services.
Interestingly, AI-driven predictive analytics is already enabling companies to navigate vast data landscapes, forecast customer behaviors, and optimize operational strategies more effectively than ever. While the telecom sector has outpaced other industries in AI adoption, simplifying AI-driven operations remains a challenge.
Richard Liu, President of ICT Marketing and Solution Sales at Huawei, addressed this issue in his presentation ‘Are Telcos Behind the AI Curve?’ at MWC 2025 in Barcelona. He emphasized the need for telcos to transition into techcos to remain profitable and relevant in today’s digital economy.
Liu highlighted that modern businesses prioritize simple and user-friendly connectivity services. With rapid AI advancements, the mobile internet has entered a new phase—the intelligent internet. “By 2030, AI will contribute USD 20 trillion to the global digital and intelligent economy,” Liu stated.
To embrace and accelerate the development of the intelligent world, operators are actively exploring ways to gain business momentum, unlock network potential, and enhance operational efficiency.
The Expanding AI Reach
AI’s advancement extends beyond phones and devices, fostering an emerging ecosystem of AI applications. Liu noted that technologies like 5.5G and AI promise to create value for the industry and operators by reshaping traditional businesses and enhancing user experiences. AI can revolutionize network structures, develop AI-centric networks as digital and intelligent foundations, boost network productivity, and refine operational and maintenance models to improve efficiency.
In the consumer segment, leading operators are integrating AI into services such as new calling functions, real-time translation, and meeting summaries, offering seamless experiences. AI home agents are also adapting to household habits, enhancing convenience and comfort.
IBM, which coined the term "agentic AI" in 2023, defines it as AI capable of autonomously performing tasks by designing workflows and utilizing available tools. These systems can make decisions, take action, solve complex problems, and interact with environments beyond their training data.
In industry settings, standard AI-powered products and intelligent solutions will enable techcos to meet evolving digital demands.
Why AI-Ready Networks?
In a competitive telecom market, AI-enabled solutions will be a key differentiator. Leading operators are promoting network evolution to enhance productivity.
For instance, in Saudi Arabia, Huawei is spearheading digital transformation by building a world-class 5G-A network infrastructure. This initiative maximizes spectrum efficiency and integrates AI-based telecom foundation models for Level-4 network autonomy. It also focuses on improving network quality, spectral efficiency, and energy utilization.
Liu emphasized the need for ubiquitous, ultra-broadband networks with low latency, large bandwidth, and multi-band capabilities to support the evolving Internet of Everything (IoE). This transformation will shift from human-to-human interactions to AI-powered agent interactions driven by the Internet of Things (IoT) and intelligence.
He stressed that transitioning from "traffic-driven network construction" to "experience-driven network construction" is crucial for ensuring a deterministic user experience.
Navigating Complex Application Scenarios
In the AI era, network operations and maintenance (O&M) will rely on AI agents and copilots. AI-driven operations can predict user requirements using digital twins, detect faults within seconds, and optimize networks around the clock. From optimizing network performance to mitigating issues before they escalate, AI agents are redefining how telcos scale and minimize operating costs.
These advancements significantly reduce service time, enhance user experience, and improve operational efficiency. Achieving seamless human-machine collaboration requires end-to-end latency of 400-600 milliseconds. Additionally, uplink bandwidth must expand tenfold to support multimodal interactions, with connections extending beyond human-to-human communication to include human-to-machine and machine-to-machine interactions.
The convergence of 5.5G and AI is enabling new forms of device interaction, intelligent services, and structural shifts in traffic models, creating vast opportunities for the mobile industry. As a leading ICT equipment provider, Huawei is well-positioned to partner with global carriers and industry leaders to accelerate AI-ready network adoption and unlock AI’s full potential across all economic sectors, fostering an inclusive and sustainable digital future.
