Unlocking the Full Value of 5G Networks Through AI at MWC Barcelona 2025

Huawei's Vision for 5G in the Age of AI

During the MWC Barcelona 2025, Li Peng, Huawei's Corporate Senior Vice President and President of ICT Sales & Service, delivered an insightful keynote focused on how telecommunications operators can harness artificial intelligence (AI) to maximize the value of their 5G networks. Peng predicts that the fusion of 5G and AI will drive double-digit growth in both Data of Usage (DOU) and Average Revenue per User (ARPU), fundamentally reshaping the mobile industry landscape.

"We are on the brink of entering a fully intelligent world," said Peng, emphasizing that smart applications are proliferating and demanding new capabilities from networking infrastructures. As operators embrace and evolve 5G technologies, they will unlock the endless potential of mobile networks. Huawei is committed to collaborating with global operators and industry partners to promote digital development and create an accessible AI landscape for all users.

Evolving Human-Machine Interaction

Li highlighted that advancements in AI are fundamentally changing human-machine interaction (HMI). Moving from basic text interactions to a rich tapestry of voice, gestures, and other multimodal interactions, HMI is becoming more real-time and user-friendly than ever. For instance, AI-driven voice assistants allow users to interact with their devices more naturally, while AI avatars on smart cloud devices provide visual feedback, offering a more personal experience for services like health monitoring. To support these applications, networks must provide guaranteed low latency, requiring a transition from 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) to 5G Standalone (SA), and eventually, 5G Advanced (5G-A).

Operators can adopt innovative technologies such as Control and User Plane Separation (CUPS) and Guaranteed Bit Rate (GBR) to minimize baseline latency and ensure deterministic latency for specific scenarios.

AI's Impact on Content Production and Distribution

According to Peng, AI is set to revolutionize the production and distribution of content. Technologies such as AI-Generated Content (AIGC) can create lengthy 2D and 3D videos with a single click. Simultaneously, AI recommendations have become more targeted, enabling personalized content distribution to broader audiences online. This dual trend is expected to significantly increase network traffic in the next five years, presenting unprecedented challenges for telecom networks. To keep pace, operators need more frequency, larger network capacities, and substantially increased uplink and downlink bandwidth.

Growing Demand for Experience-Centric Network Coverage

With the integration of AI in cloud and mobile devices, there will be surging demand for experience-driven network coverage. Reports indicate that by 2030, over a billion people will utilize cloud smartphones and cloud drives, all requiring speedy access to cloud computing power. Additionally, smart vehicle applications will necessitate extensive coverage across urban areas, highways, and rural settings to ensure a seamless mobility experience.

To meet these escalating demands, continuous advancements in network deployment are essential—from the rapid expansion of 5G-NSA networks to the establishment of 5G-SA networks for an uninterrupted indoor and outdoor experience, finally culminating in experience-centric 5G-A networks. Such improvements will empower operators to extend network coverage, facilitating smooth operations for billions of new connections among users and hundreds of billions of IoT connections between devices.

Complexity Demands Application-Driven Operations Management

The increasing complexity of networks will steer the evolution towards application-driven operations management (OM). AI will introduce more complicated application scenarios and diverse experience requirements.

Some operators are already developing OM systems based on AI agents. These agents can use digital twins to predict personalized requirements for users on behalf of operations enablement, significantly reducing the time to market for services from days to minutes. For network maintenance, self-learning AI agents can foresee and locate faults in seconds, boosting troubleshooting efficiency by 30%. Furthermore, digital sandboxes can simulate real application traffic, allowing AI agents to analyze traffic patterns and optimize networks round the clock based on application requirements.

Seizing New Opportunities with 5G-A

"New network capacities will pave the way for new business models," asserted Li. "Carriers can go beyond monetizing data traffic and begin monetizing the experience itself." Currently, telecom operators worldwide are actively exploring ways to monetize experience based on various factors like speed, latency, and VIP privileges. Customized services for business travelers, live streamers, and AI cloud smartphone users are being launched, with some even expanding into the B2B2C market by providing network functions through open APIs.

For instance, Chinese mobile operators are collaborating with over 100 different industries—including insurance and catering—to offer AI New Calling services via open APIs, achieving a tenfold increase in their revenue from the industry.

"The opportunities are immense," Li concluded. "And the time to act is now. Early adopters are already scaling up in over 200 cities worldwide, taking solid steps forward and unlocking incredible new values."

The MWC Barcelona 2025 is taking place from March 3-6 in Barcelona, Spain. During the event, Huawei will showcase its latest products and solutions at booth 1H50 in Fira Gran Via Hall 1. By 2025, the commercial rollout of 5G-Advanced will accelerate, and AI will assist operators in reshaping their businesses, infrastructures, and operations. Huawei is committed to working closely with operators and partners globally to hasten the transition towards a smarter world. For further information, visit Huawei's MWC 2025 Event Page.