In 2023, the communications industry will usher in a severe technological baptism in the ever-changing digital era. Industry hotspots such as 400G backbone network, computing power network, and 5G sail have built a collective memory of the industry changes in the past year, and have been deeply embedded in the development context of the industry in this new era of information technology.
400G backbone
In January 2023, China Mobile carried out a 400G QPSK live network test, realizing 5616km ultra-long-distance land real-time live network transmission, creating a new record for the transmission distance of 400G QPSK powerless relay live network, and verifying the 12THZ transmission performance of spectrum expansion to C6T + L6T for the first time. In March, China Unicom built the country's largest 400G OTN experimental network in Zhejiang. In June, China's first 400G bandwidth computing power channel was successfully verified in Guizhou, and 400G accelerated to maturity, and on October 31, China Mobile issued an announcement on the centralized procurement of 400G OTN equipment for the interprovincial backbone transmission network, and the first standard for large-scale commercial use of 400G OTN was issued, with a total price of up to 3.6 billion yuan, marking the beginning of a new era!
Hash network
In the era of digital economy, computing power has gradually become a new productive force, providing new momentum for the digital transformation of thousands of industries. In April 2023, the Ministry of Science and Technology organized a kick-off meeting for the national supercomputing Internet work in Tianjin, and initiated the establishment of the National Supercomputing Internet Consortium. Under the impetus of the consortium, supercomputing power will be provided to users in the form of software, and it will enter thousands of households like electricity. On August 19, at the main forum of the 2023 China Computing Power Conference, China Mobile joined hands with a number of supercomputing centers, intelligent computing centers, and cloud service providers to jointly launch the country's largest "Baichuan" computing power grid-connected action, creating the "Baichuan" computing power grid-connected platform with the most complete computing power types, the largest scale, and the widest coverage, and accelerating the realization of "ubiquitous network, ubiquitous computing power, and ubiquitous intelligence".
5G sails
In July 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and 9 departments jointly issued the "5G Application "Sailing" Action Plan (2021-2023)", 23 years is the third year and the final year of the 5G Sailing Plan, in the past three years, China's 5G construction has achieved a series of major results, and the number of 5G base stations has increased by nearly 4 times; The average speed of 5G networks is 351Mbps, far exceeding the 51Mbps of 4G networks. The 5G industry virtual private network has been built more than 290,000. The scale of user traffic has doubled, and the consumption potential continues to be released. Industry-side 5G applications have been integrated into 71 of the 97 major categories of the national economy, and the cumulative number of 5G application cases has reached 940,000. It is also the first in the world to allocate the 6GHz frequency band for 5G 6G systems, and re-cultivate the 800MHz and 900MHz frequency bands for 5G systems to strengthen the guarantee of frequency resources.
fttrThe China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) recently released China's broadband development in 2023,* pointing out that by the end of September 2023, new services such as fiber-to-the-room (FTTR) in China have moved from pilot deployment to large-scale development, and the number of users has exceeded 8 million. In addition, according to the Broadband Development Alliance's FTTR Fiber to the Room*** 2022, China has 4600 million households, it is estimated that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, about 15%-20% of households may renovate FTTR, with a cumulative renovation space of more than 130 billion yuan. From 100 Gigabit to Gigabit, from Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) to Fiber-to-the-Room (FTTR), we continue to create high-quality network experiences and improve service quality.
Data elements
Data elements are another factor of production after land, labor, capital and technology, at the end of 22 years, the first national special policy document "Data 20" was launched, laying the tone for the development of data elements in 23 years. In April 2023, China Mobile released a new type of trusted data circulation infrastructure, Data Networking (DSSN) and related products, and held a strategic cooperation agreement signing ceremony with six data exchanges across the country to increase the layout of the data element circulation market. More importantly, on October 25, the establishment of the National Data Bureau will effectively promote the technological innovation, development and utilization of data elements, and effective governance, and support the construction of digital China with a data power. At the same time, carriers are also actively accelerating digital delivery capabilities, and the importance of data elements is becoming increasingly prominent, becoming a new battlefield for the three major operators to compete for layout.
Digital transformation of the industry
On the one hand, digital transformation has become the main theme of development, and the demand for super automation has surged. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC)**, global investment in digital transformation will be set at 17 per yearWith a compound growth rate of 1%, this type of investment is expected to reach a staggering 2$3 trillion. On the other hand, a new round of industrial transformation will revolve gradually around the development from informatization to digitalization, and the importance of communication networks as the underlying channel for data dissemination is self-evident.
Cloud-network convergence
Cloud-network convergence refers to the organic combination of cloud computing and network technology to build a new type of information infrastructure to achieve seamless connection and collaborative operation of cloud and network. Adhere to the development direction of network as the foundation, cloud as the core, network with the cloud, and cloud-network integration to promote network transformation. In 2023, the biggest change in cloud-network integration lies in intelligent development, and at the beginning of the year, China Telecom released the "China Telecom Cloud-Network Convergence Big Scientific Device". In November, China Telecom released the all-optical network 20 intelligent achievements and "cloud-network integration big science and technology innovation device".
Broadband FrontierOn January 11, 2023, the National Conference on Industry and Informatization was held in Beijing, which pointed out that it is necessary to accelerate the construction of 5G and gigabit optical networks and start the construction of "broadband frontier". At the beginning of 24 years, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other thirteen departments issued the "Notice on Accelerating the Construction of "Broadband Frontier" to strengthen the overall layout of broadband networks in border areas, make overall plans for the construction of 5G, gigabit optical networks and other networks in border areas, comprehensively improve broadband network supply and service capabilities, and open up the "artery" of high-quality development information in border areas.
AI large model
Since the second half of 2022, AIGC (AI-Generated Content) has achieved rapid development in technology and industry. Take the version evolution of the OpenAI GPT series as an example, from GPT-1 to GPT-4 in 23 years. AI companies have sprung up one after another, and operators are also actively deploying, and China Telecom has released a 100-billion-parameter Xingchen semantic model, including the first batch of 12 industry models for trial commercialization. China Unicom's Honghu** model is the first large-scale model for operators' value-added services. On the one hand, AI needs to rely on the network to bring massive data, computing power, and network foundation, and on the other hand, AI is bound to bring new changes to the industry.
Synaesthesia is one
With the gradual deepening of 5G development, the integration of communication and perception (synaesthesia) has also attracted more and more attention from the industry. It integrates traditional mobile communication, radar, computing power and other technologies to realize the integration of communication, perception and computing, and provides ubiquitous synaesthesia computing fusion services for target tracking and positioning, ranging and velocity measurement, and imaging recognition of target objects. Huawei has conducted tests in multiple locations to achieve high-precision vehicle, pedestrian, and drone recognition. China Telecom Guangzhou Branch and ZTE completed the industry's first "integrated synaesthesia" multi-base station and multi-AAU networking deployment in Baiyun District, Guangzhou, helping to build a high-quality synaesthesia network.