PRESS RELEASE: At the 5G Brings New Value Forum of MWC Shanghai 2021 attended by carrier customers and key industry analysts, Huawei released its whitepaper titled “Cross-Technology Collaboration (X-Tech) Enables Industry Digital Transformation”. The whitepaper proposes that cross-tech collaboration (connectivity, intelligence, cloud, computing, and industry applications) is the core of digital transformation for numerous industries. Through cross-technology collaboration, carriers can play a key role in industry digital transformation by becoming capability platform providers and comprehensive ICT service providers.

At the release event, President of Huawei Carrier BG Marketing & Solution Sales Dept Peng Song said that as 5G, edge computing, and multi-cloud technologies become more mature and widespread, carriers will be better positioned in the industry value chain due to their operation experience and localization advantages which are required for comprehensive ICT services. The whitepaper also proposes these three points:

First, digital economy strategies and the pandemic are accelerating industry digital transformations. The digital economy is being developed through policies such as the US’s National Network for Manufacturing Innovation, China’s New Infrastructure Plan, Germany’s Industry 4.0, and South Korea’s Digital New Deal. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic will likely be long-term, which will inevitably accelerate how fast lifestyles and commercial production become digitalized.

Second, carriers’ internal and external transformations rely on cross-technology collaboration. ICT technologies involving connectivity, computing, cloud, and intelligence should be integrated with industry applications. There needs to be an end-to-end digital ecosystem, and diversified efforts should be made across talent, organizations, and processes to achieve industry digital transformation. To unlock the technical dividends and seize the opportunities presented by 5G, edge computing, multi-cloud, and other new technologies, carriers should leverage their experience in managing complex platforms and relationships with specialist vendors. This will help them transform from infrastructure service providers to capability platform providers and then to becoming comprehensive ICT service providers; this way, they can move up the value chain and expand their addressable markets.

Third, carriers can provide unique value through their expertise and diversified capabilities. In addition to enhancing connectivity, carriers can improve elsewhere by developing their own capabilities or by working with partners to expand their service portfolio and to respond to the market better. This whitepaper covers industry projects that carriers have developed with Huawei and other partners. The first is on how 5G and device-edge-cloud collaboration are enabling remote intelligent management and unmanned plants in the iron & steel industry; the second is how a smart campus can support enterprise operations from day one and makes rendering designs faster through an all-in-one connectivity, computing, and management platform; the third is on how the combination of 5G and intelligent technologies is enabling the petroleum industry’s remote safety measures and production management.

Integrated ICT services will give carriers globally a 95% increase in revenue in the industry sector from 2020 to 2030. The depth and range of cross-technology collaboration will determine the competitiveness of carriers in their digital transformations.

Potential Market for CSPs in Global Industry and Service Sectors

Peng Song emphasized that because it is a partner to carriers, Huawei will support their strategic goals and provide connectivity, cloud, and computing solutions to help carriers empower industry digital transformations and to create new value together.