LIVE FROM HUAWEI ANALYST SUMMIT, SHENZHEN: Huawei is working on autonomous, always available networks by adding artificial intelligence (AI) to its network architecture to improve operational efficiency and help shift the telco industry to a healthier state.

William Xu, Huawei chief strategy marketing officer (pictured), said the combination, called SoftCOM AI, will lead to significant leaps in operation and maintenance (O&M) efficiency, resource utilisation and energy efficiency.

For example, AI technology can be used to support additional network maintenance tasks without adding people: “In future, O&M staff can be reduced greatly. Most network issues are caused by human error. Through AI and intelligence, we can eliminate 70 per cent of the errors as well as predict as much as 60 per cent of network problems.”

The company is working on a full-stack of AI-enhanced products, across chips, devices, networks and the cloud, but Xu said it won’t be able to provide more detail until the Huawei Connect event in Shanghai later in the year.

Huawei also used the event to launch its Global Industry Vision (GIV) 2025, with the goal of helping shape the future direction of the industry by forecasting trends and working with partners across the ecosystem to build an intelligent world.

Xu said GIV forecasts global home and personal connections to reach 40 billion in 2025, with each person owning five devices, while video will account for 89 per cent of network traffic in 2025, up from 68 per cent in 2017.