PRESS RELEASE: ZTE Corporation announces its collaboration with China Mobile in activating the world’s first ultra-long-haul optical backbone link based on 400G Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) technology.
China Mobile recently hosted a press conference titled “Enabling Nationwide All-Optical Coverage and Computing: Completion and Application of the First Link of China Mobile’s Inter-provincial 400G OTN (Optical Transport Network) Backbone Network”. During the conference, China Mobile unveiled its first self-developed 400G all-optical inter-provincial backbone network link, connecting Beijing to Inner Mongolia. The network, scheduled for full completion by mid-year, aims to facilitate high-speed interconnection across all eight major hubs of China’s “east-data-west-computing” project.
As part of the country’s “New Infrastructure” strategy and the surge in AI applications such as ChatGPT, Sora, and Vision Pro, computing power has emerged as a new driving force in the digital economy era. To address the escalating demand for computing power, China Mobile has emerged as a leader in the industry chain, independently solving 400G technological difficulties internally and achieving in-house core components. This has led to the establishment of cutting-edge network infrastructure.
ZTE and China Mobile have closely cooperated in the field of 400G technology. In March 2023, ZTE assisted China Mobile in launching the world’s first 400G QPSK live trial link, achieving a transmission distance of 5,616km over a land cable and setting a record for 400G QPSK transmission without an electric regenerator. This March, ZTE contributed to China Mobile’s deployment of services such as “east-data-west-computing” based on the world’s first 400G QPSK ultra-long-haul optical backbone link, marking the official commencement of large-scale commercial use of 400G QPSK OTN networks.
In the construction of the 400G OTN inter-provincial backbone network, ZTE deployed innovative technologies including 400G QPSK, C6T+L6T band expansion, 100T+ platform, and OXC. Compared to the previous generation backbone network, this solution increases transmission bandwidth by four times, reduces latency inter-hubs to less than 20ms, decreases the latency of main active links by 20%, and reduces energy consumption per bit by 65%. It can support up to 640,000 channels of AR virtual shooting “east-data-west-rendering” concurrently, four times more than the capacity of the 100G backbone network, ensuring real-time user experiences for “east-data-west-rendering” services. Notably, ZTE’s 100T+ OTN platform supports forward compatibility, fully safeguarding operators’ existing investments.
Building on the 400G OTN inter-provincial backbone network solution and network-media integration technology, ZTE and China Mobile launched the “east-data-west-rendering” service. Using an ordinary mirrorless camera and lightweight AR terminal for shooting, real-time video is transmitted through the 400G backbone network to a computing node in western China. After high-quality AR rendering on ZTE’s XRExplore cloud platform, the mixed reality video stream is delivered to an eastern broadcast control platform for live streaming, offering lightweight, portable, and high-quality mobile AR virtual shooting services accessible to all.
With the successful completion and application of China Mobile’s first 400G OTN inter-provincial backbone network project, ZTE remains committed to ensuring the seamless implementation of the entire project, assisting China Mobile in building the world’s largest scale 400G all-optical backbone network.
Moving forward, ZTE aims to collaborate with global partners to establish a robust optical foundation for computing networks, foster the healthy growth of the industrial ecosystem, and drive new momentum into the digital economy.