PRESS RELEASE: On May 24, 2021, China Mobile held a summit on bringing carbon emissions to a peak, achieving carbon neutrality, and developing green 5G technologies. At the summit, China Mobile released the Green 5G Initiative with partners from the industry, education, research, and application domains.

This summit provides an important opportunity for ICT players to engage with vertical enterprises, standardization and research institutions, universities, and application partners to build consensus around creating effective mechanisms to promote innovations towards green 5G development.

Green and low carbon has become a top priority for sustainable development. Realizing carbon peak and neutrality requires all industries to profoundly transform growth patterns at the fastest possible pace via the most optimal path. China has already preliminarily built the world’s largest 5G standalone (SA) networks.

As a leading operator in China, China Mobile has placed the energy conservation of 5G networks atop of its corporate agenda, with a great deal of effort taken to explore new materials, devices, and structures and build smart energy-saving platforms, improving the energy efficiency of base stations. Tangible achievements have been recorded. For example, the amount of energy used by base stations in 2020 was 25% less than that of 2019. At the same time, China Mobile is integrating 5G with AI, IoT, cloud computing, big data, and edge computing (AICDE) as well as blockchain technology to help other industries achieve low-carbon growth and intelligent digital transformation.

At the summit, Gao Tongqing, Vice General Manager of China Mobile, called upon partners to work together to accelerate the construction of 5G networks and the integration of 5G technology with top energy-consuming enterprises while strengthening the innovations of core technologies. “This will be vital for building an integrated platform for research, standardization, product R&D, and application expansion as we contribute to building a low-carbon China,” explained Gao.

An expert from the power grid domain shared the latest progress in pushing for carbon peak and carbon neutrality, and a guest from the research domain shared a future-proof concept for designing networks that can fulfill differentiated scenario requirements, while also boosting coordination, energy efficiency, and low-carbon operations.

The Green 5G Initiative aims to facilitate green 5G development inside and outside of the ICT space. Based on global low-carbon demands, the initiative elaborates the status and industry progress of 5G growth, emphasizing that green 5G is a multi-industry business that requires all parties from the industry, education, research, and application sectors to work together in the following aspects.

First, the in-depth integration of 5G with top energy-consuming industries, typically including smelting, steel, and chemical among many others. This will enable leveraging 5G to develop products, upgrade technologies, and achieve digital transformation while improving efficiency and reducing energy consumption, ultimately minimizing carbon emissions and protecting the environment.

Second, aggressive convergence between upstream and downstream enterprises in the 5G industry chain. Operators play a leading role in streamlining information about equipment, components, materials, and the energy supply of upstream and downstream players and building joint innovation mechanisms that encourage the efficient development of new products. This will be important for ensuring the sustained reduction of the energy consumed by 5G networks.

Third, joint breakthroughs in fundamental research and key technologies between enterprises and universities. The areas of collaboration include new energy, materials, and components. This will be crucial for making core technological breakthroughs, laying a solid foundation for green 5G.

Fourth, integrated platforms for research, standardization, products, and applications. This means boosting the collaboration between universities and ICT and its vertical enterprises in driving all-round research of green 5G development.

The Green 5G Initiative released at the summit will help build consensus among industry, education, research, and applications sectors and enable them to jointly explore the path of green, low-carbon 5G development, ultimately contributing to China’s efforts towards carbon peak and carbon neutrality.