Huawei urges telecom industry to scale 5G-Advanced for AI

Yang Chaobin, CEO of Huawei's Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Business Group, urged the telecom industry at MWC Barcelona 2026 to expand access to Artificial Intelligence (AI) by accelerating 5G-Advanced deployment and allocating spectrum to support emerging AI services.

He cited rapid growth in AI workload consumption, saying the number of tokens consumed daily grew 300 times over the past two years, and referenced ongoing 6G standardization with 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) not expected to freeze specifications before March 2029.

Yang outlined technical requirements for networks, calling for a shift from downlink-centric designs to deliver ultra-high bandwidth for both uplink and downlink, and for secure, reliable, ultra-low-latency connectivity to support multimodal exchanges and real-time AI collaboration. He said 5G-A delivered 10 times highEntity Relationship (ER) uplink speeds and supported new Internet of Things (IoT) technologies such as reduced capability (RedCap) and passive IoT, along with AI for differentiated network capabilities.

The keynote noted that 5G-A was commercially deployed at scale in more than 300 cities and was expanding across frequency bands, and that the U6 GHz band had been established as a mainstream frequency after multiple rounds of discussion at the World Radiocommunication Conference; he added that 5G-A already supported U6 GHz and that mainstream device chips and the industry chain for 5G-A devices were mature. He also described Huawei’s RuralStar solutions as providing inclusive mobile access to 170 million people in 80 countries and cited DigiTruck classrooms in Kenya, inclusive financial services in Bangladesh, and mobile medical services in Argentina.

“The intelligent era is approaching fast. New AI applications are emerging every day, and so it is time for the industry to come together to unleash the full potential of 5G-A. We must efficiently utilize new spectrum resources like U6 GHz to create new value for the industry while paving the way for evolution to 6G.” said Yang Chaobin.

Huawei said it was working with carriers and partners to pursue large-scale commercial adoption of 5G-A, to pave the way for evolution to 6G, and to create AI-Centric Network solutions while accelerating the large-scale deployment of level-4 autonomous networks (AN L4).