The operator speeches on day one, running nearly an hour, were heavy on strategic positioning such as how the combination of AI and 5G would bring new production methods, leading to super-personalised and flexible manufacturing.

The China Mobile and China Unicom chiefs surprisingly mentioned 5G-A just once, while China Telecom’s chair managed to avoid referencing it, but he did highlight the company was one of the first in the world to connect a 5G phone directly to satellite through three proprietary technologies and its low-altitude economy plans (focused on drones and non-terrestrial networks).

China Mobile chairman Yang Jie kicked off the conference by stating: “We are standing at a new stage in the digital intelligence revolution.”

The chair added it aims to “transform and upgrade our public information service offerings”, while at the same time reshape consumer services by integrating AI agents.

He echoed Chinese President Xi Jinping’s now popular policy concept of “new quality productive forces” a total of seven times in his 18-minute talk.

China Telecom chairman Ke Ruiwen stated “we are in the era of cloud plus internet plus AI,” which aims to transform the way the company operates its networks, “accelerating the agility and nimbleness” of its 5G network.

Ke added AI will also contribute to energy savings, a reduction in carbon emissions and improve the customer experience.

He offered a few more specifics, vowing to continue to upgrade its integrated 5G product offering and promote industrial devices equipped with 5G capabilities. The operator also will use generative models and technologies to expand use cases to “ensure 5G networks cover most industrial sectors”.

China Unicom chairman Chen Zhongyue encouraged operators to work together to develop new ways to revive growth in communication services, noting uptake of broadband services inched up just 2.3 per cent last year after growth peaked at about 30 per cent in 2014.

5G-A “milestone”
Meanwhile, David Wang, executive director of the board at Huawei, called the freezing of 3GPP release 18, the first standards unveiled for 5G-A last month, an industry milestone.

In a session the day before MWC Shanghai kicked off, Wang stated 5G-A networks are being deployed to meet network requirements in the AI era by delivering faster speeds, larger capacity and lower latency. “AI applications will soon make a considerable contribution to overall mobile traffic, driving the need for upgrades.”

Judging from the lack of public attention from the three operator bosses, the domestic players, which have spent trillions of yuan deploying nearly 3.8 million 5G base stations over the past five years, appear far from enthusiastic about the next-generation of 5G.

China Mobile alone invested around CNY100 billion ($13.8 billion) annually in its 5G network over that period. It revealed broad plans in March to deliver 5G-A connectivity to more than 300 cities by end-2024, without specifics on the scale or target use cases. In June, the operator said coverage reached 35 cities.

China Telecom held a press conference on Day 2 to reveal its 5G-A action plan, but president Liang Baojun offered no more detail than chairman Ke. Liang said the plan will focus on “deepening practical exploration at three levels: capability building, ecological cooperation and application implementation”. 

There was no mention of target cities, planned coverage area or number of base stations.

Newcomer China Broadnet was equally vague about its 5G-A network rollout plan during a press event, while China Unicom earlier said it began commercial pilots.

A Beijing-based analyst told Mobile World Live that while Chinese operators’ aggressive 5G investments have created new growth, particularly in the enterprise segment (which is leading the world thanks to their extensive deployments), even the Big Three find the continuing investment in 5G-A a daunting task despite its value proposition.

The editorial views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and will not necessarily reflect the views of the GSMA, its Members or Associate Members.

The post MWC SHANGHAI DIARY: China operator chiefs push AI, quiet on 5G-A appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Speaking at MWC Shanghai 24 on the topic of The Rise of 5G-A, Yang Chaobin, Board Member and President of ICT Products and Solutions at Huawei, said ICT convergence is the key driver behind higher-level network autonomy and outlined how its automated driving network (ADN) can boost 5G-A network productivity.

Generative AI has made significant breakthroughs across the world, positioning the technology as a foundational driver for network automation. “We are continuously integrating rapidly evolving AI technologies to improve the level of network automation,” he noted.

Meanwhile, on the network side, 3GPP release 18, the first standards unveiled for 5G-A, was officially frozen in mid-June, preparing the way for the widespread launch of networks.

In late March, China Mobile switched on the world’s first commercial 5G-A network, turning on the service in Shanghai, where nearly 150,000 households are already connected to the new technology. The operator plans to deliver 5G-A connectivity to more than 300 cities by end-2024.

Combined, the advances enable improved network O&M efficiency by transitioning from manual configuration to tool-assisted task automation, he said.

Data boost
From a services development perspective, AI is transforming information production, processing, transfer and exchange, bringing new opportunities in the mobile AI era.

At a time of declining data growth, the speed at which content such as AI generated video is growing is expected to spur a new round of network traffic growth.

China Unicom recently noted uptake of broadband services fell to just 2.3 per cent last year after growth peaked at about 30 per cent in 2014.

That is about to change. Huawei predicts mobile traffic growth will see a turning point in 2025, with a 20-times increase by 2030.

The number of AI assistant users is forecast to reach 1 billion by 2030, while AI is expected to be applied to tens of thousands of industry segments.

Yang argued these developments will place new demands on operators as they work to differentiate their offerings to enterprises, including end-to-end ultra-low latency and deterministic assurance. More advanced network automation capabilities will also be required. These cover user self-service capabilities, human-machine natural semantic interaction capabilities and self-closure capabilities for network service scenarios.

Capex vs opex
From the network investment perspective, over the past two decades, operators’ capex and opex have diverged.

As a percentage of revenue, capex is falling while opex continues to maintain a high share. Capital spending is predicted to drop to just 14 per cent of revenue in 2025, down from 50 per cent in 2020. Meanwhile, opex is on track to rise 68 per cent from 45 per cent over the same period.

By analysing the specific components of opex, Yang noted it identified large expenses, including installation and maintenance, electricity and network optimisation. These can account for up to 58 per cent of total expenses.

“We believe that introducing telecoms foundation models to build a new O&M mode is the key to reducing opex, which can overcome challenges like network complexity, precision and efficiency,” he explained.

At MWC Barcelona in February, the company launched the Huawei Telecom Foundation Model, which improves the capabilities of its ADN solution.

Flexible options
Based on the core capabilities of foundation models, Huawei can provide various applications, copilots and agents to reshape the O&M paradigm.

Its full-stack architecture models introduced to networks cover three layers:

1. The business operation layer offers an intelligent window for operators to provide services for users, who can subscribe to and adjust services as required.
2. The network O&M layer completes closed-loop O&M by acting as the intelligent brain of operation and the centre for foundation model training. It generates optimal O&M policies for the entire network.
3. The network resource layer completes closed-loop resource management and executes policies.

Yang noted that efficient closed-loop network maintenance is implemented through intelligent analysis and inference.

Service rollout and monetisation are accelerated through intent interaction and automatic API generation. Focusing on high-value scenarios in network maintenance, experience assurance and service enablement, Huawei built five role-oriented copilots and five scenario-oriented agents.

The copilots provide natural semantic interaction, intelligent knowledge Q&A and O&M assistance capabilities, which help engineers reduce manual information query and collaboration between operators, lower the operation threshold and improve the operation efficiency of each of the five roles.

For five complex O&M scenarios, the agents can understand and break down complex tasks, invoke appropriate tools and APIs, and quickly and independently close tasks, which enables service quality improvement and revenue generation, O&M cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

Yang closed his speech by acknowledging the road to fully automated O&M processes is complex and requires collaboration across the entire industry, but underscored the significant successes accelerated by new AI capabilities.

The post Huawei automation push beefs up 5G-A capabilities appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The world’s largest – and arguably most advanced – mobile market was the focus of the GSMA’s latest MWC event this week, and Mobile World Live‘s Justin Springham was on the ground to capture all the buzz. AI and 5G were everywhere.

The post Video feature: MWC Shanghai 2024 highlights appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The speakers outlined plans to drive the development of 5G-A, and take advantage of the enhanced capabilities.

The event saw the launch of Huawei’s 5G-A Pioneers Programme, which highlighted innovative mobile operators, numerous city showcases, business model upgrades, high-quality network construction, service innovation and joint efforts to develop the ecosystem.

David Wang, Huawei’s Executive Director of the Board and Chairman of the ICT Infrastructure Managing Board, kicked off the session entitled “5G-A: Paving the Way for Shared Success”.

He stated 5G-A networks are being deployed to meet network requirements in the AI era by delivering faster speeds, larger capacity and lower latency. “AI applications will soon make a considerable contribution to overall mobile traffic, driving the need for upgrades.”

Last week, 3GPP release 18, the first standards unveiled for 5G-A, was officially frozen, marking a milestone in the industry, Wang said.  After five years, 5G is the fastest growing mobile communication technology ever, with 261 5G networks around the world serving 1.8 billion users. The rate of user development he claimed is three-times that of 4G.

China celebrated the fifth anniversary of 5G licences being awarded two weeks ago, with the technology improving operators’ capabilities to serve both consumer and enterprise customers.

The country currently has 1.75 billion cellular customers, with 851 million 5G users (with compatible handsets). The number of IoT connections reached 2.33 billion.

Outside of China, the first wave of 5G deployments have seen rapid success, with just 20 per cent of 5G users accounting for 30 per cent of mobile traffic and 40 per cent of mobile service revenue.

But Wang acknowledged there is still a long way to go, arguing the move to 5G-A can protect existing investments, bring new business opportunities and broaden operators’ business scope.

China scale
China Mobile laid out plans to create more diverse applications to stimulate traffic growth, which slowed to 15 per cent a year between 2021 and 2023, after doubling annually for seven years.

Applications such as HD live streaming and immersive 3G games, which put more demand on the uplink capacity, have spurred the push to deploy 5G-A due to its significant uplink enhancement.

By improving its capabilities, the company aims to eventually deliver downlink speeds of 10Gb/s and uplink rates of 1Gb/s, noting 5G-A is a critical transition phase from 5G to 6G.

It also is exploring the use of mmWave spectrum to drive satellite terrestrial integration.

Since officially launching commercial 5G service in late 2019, the company quickly gained a world-leading position in terms of network scale, technological innovation and customer base.

In just over five years, the operator deployed 2.23 million 5G base stations, accounting for more than one-third of the world’s 5G base stations and covering more than 95 per cent of the population. It invested around CNY100 billion annual in its 5G network over that period. It has plans to deploy another 400,000 5G base stations this year.

The number of customers on 5G packages and using compatible handsets reached more than 500 million, with nearly 800 million on 5G packages. The large gap is due to the low price of 5G data plans in China.

With 5G-A on target to increase speeds by 10-times and significantly lower latency, the company backs the technology to incubate new use cases.

Diversified service innovation
China Telecom believes the move to 5G-A will “inject new impetus for 5G” with carrier aggregation and mmWave, enabling it to upgrade enhanced mobile broadband services in terms of latency, bandwidth, reliability, cost and power consumption. Of course, speeds also will improve.

It is targeting capturing 10 per cent of the delivery service revenue, assuming drones take a 50 per cent market share, generating some CNY120 billion a year.

Like other operators in China, the company is prepared to commercialise RedCap across its entire network, after extensive testing, with pilots completed in many enterprise segments.

Meanwhile, China Unicom declared its work on 5G-A started last year and is key to maintaining its position as a leading global network service provider.

The operator has plans to boost coverage of 5G carrier aggregation to more cities to improve the quality of 5G service and make it more affordable. It also is empowering diverse industries with innovative 5G AI applications to accelerate the growth of the ecosystem.

After five years of 5G commercialisation, monthly data usage is peaking, while the enterprise segment is demanding enhanced requirements, such as passive IoT and lower latency, which is driving its move to 5G-A.

The operator serves more than 10,000 private 5G network customers across different industries and has more than 33,000 large-scale 5G projects.

Middle East drivers
UAE operator du outlined its 5G-A roadmap, with a mission to be a global leader in mobile technology. After running trials in 2023, it started deploying 5G-A in Dubai this year, with the aim to cover all major cities by the end of 2025, and nationwide coverage in 2026.

Its 5G penetration was 31 per cent at end-2023, with 98.5 per cent population coverage.

The operator started working on the next generation in FWA, building a solution supported by 5G-A.

Oman Telecommunications began 5G-A trials in the middle of 2023, verifying the capability of passive IoT, RedCap and 10Gb/s download rates using mmWave and TDD carriers.

In phase one, to reach peak download speed of 5Gb/s, Omantel will preemptively enter into key scenarios from 2024-2025.

In phase two, Omantel aims to lead in 5G-A era from 2026-2028 with download speeds of 10G/s.

Moving to Hong Kong, the largest mobile operator in the territory turned to 5G-A to ensure uninterrupted service and manage spikes in network loads during major sports events, concerts and festivals.

It has deployed mmWave spectrum to support FWA traffic, which is projected to more than double over the next three years. The spectrum also is used for backhaul to add transmission diversity for telephone exchange, enhancing network stability and resilience.

The operator racked up 1.4 million 5G customers by end-2023, representing 41 per cent of its postpaid subscribers. The penetration more than doubled since December 2021.

The success of these mobile operators in 5G and clear vision about the future development path of 5G-A positions the pioneers to lead the industry in the future with improved capabilities and various new use cases, with the potential to drive revenue growth well into 2030.

The post 5G-A pioneers shine light on next growth phase appeared first on Mobile World Live.

In Q&A with CCS Insight chairman Shaun Collins (pictured, left), Yip said it took some time to deploy the AI-powered customer support system, which can summarise, synthesise and highlight key issues by topic for staff.

“The idea is not about replacing jobs, it’s about augmenting efficiency and effectiveness,” she explained, adding it’s not just the pay, but people are no longer interested in certain jobs.

The operator is working to make call centre jobs more interesting in a long-term move to retain staff.

Yip said it is now using AI to support marketing communications to develop new campaigns and carry out faster testing. 

Singtel was one of the first operators in the world to deploy a standalone (SA) 5G network, rolling out the service across the city state in 2021. 

While its networks support auto making, chipmaking, ports and warehouses, Yip acknowledged those use cases are just the start. “There is a lot more innovation that needs to come.”

She believes the low-latency offered by SA networks are best suited for use cases on the enterprise side.

On the consumer side, she said users appreciate the higher speeds, “but we still need to have killer apps to create the wow factor. AR and VR apps are more niche and not mainstream.” 

The post Singtel taps AI to retain call centre staff appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Qualcomm has been on a mission to broaden its product portfolio beyond chips for smartphones for several years. It has diversified into automotive, XR, PCs and the Industrial market, all areas that look set to be transformed by fast-growing AI technology.

Reflecting on the company’s roadmap and timeline for these target markets, Palkhiwala noted that smartphones remain Qualcomm’s “base market and those devices are being transformed with AI.”

He then highlighted automotive as a market where it has “established ourselves as the leader for computing and AI on the device. There’s lots of new genAI use cases coming into the cockpit…I’d say that’s next.”

“XR, we’ve already proven ourselves from a tech perspective but XR might be the device that changes the most because of genAI. Using an AI assistant you’ll be able to do things you wouldn’t have done in the past because you won’t be constrained by form factor and size of display. All of that could change. That is a device that could have very significant disruption.”

“The next one in the sequence is PC and the last one is Industrial.”

The executive noted that seeing markets in this timeline “allows us to draw a longterm runway for the company.”

Intelligent cars
Palkhiwala highlighted the automotive market as one where the user experience could be hugely improved thanks to AI. “One of the challenges as an experience for the consumer is something goes wrong and there’s a light on the dashboard and you don’t know what it is. Then the effort to find out what is going on with the car, get an appointment, get it fixed is unnecessarily long.

“Why not take an AI model, train it on the manual of the car and make it available as a genAI experience to the end user where you have a conversation with the car about what’s wrong and then the car can offer you ways and how to repair it? It’s a very simple use case, technologically not that difficult to do, but it allows you to get over one of the things users don’t like about a car. The user experience of dealing with a  problem with a car is less than satisfactory and that could change.”

The post Qualcomm sees AI playing into expansion efforts appeared first on Mobile World Live.

CEO George Zhao (pictured) said AI “is revolutionising our lives” and driving the smartphone industry forward, but noted much of the industry has focused on cloud-based AI, which is just one part of the puzzle. 

Zhao added on-device AI is “uniquely positioned to deliver services that are tailored to us and our preferences”.

Spotting deepfakes
Its AI-powered deepfake detection is designed to help prevent fraud and spot digitally manipulated content by examining frame-by-frame information such as eye contact, lighting, image clarity and video playback to identify flaws that are imperceptible to the human eye.

The system has been trained through a large dataset of videos and images related to online scams, enabling the AI to perform identification, screening and comparison within 3 seconds, the company said.

Meanwhile its new AI “defocus” feature transforms a smartphone into a special lens, which simulate defocus glasses on the device’s display.

Honor stated the innovation takes eye protection from prevention to creating technology that can provide relief for users. 

Defocus glasses, or myopia control spectacle lenses, are designed to slow the progression of nearsightedness in children. The vendor explained the glasses are to show “induce controlled defocus” in the user’s peripheral visual field to help maintain clear central vision.

In his keynote, Zhao outlined the four layers of AI architecture: interface to cloud-based AI; app-level AI; platform level AI (OS); and cross-device and cross-OS AI. Honor is focused on the second and third layers.

Zhao also teased the launch of the Honor Magic V3, which he said will challenge the foldable market with its lightweight and slim design. Industry insiders expect the device to be released sometime in July. 

The post Honor keeps it real with on-device AI  appeared first on Mobile World Live.

“We want to ensure we innovate not only in computing using AI technology, but also want to continue to innovate on the network side” through joint development projects and collaboration with industry players, he explained.

Chen noted that while uptake of broadband services inched up just 2.3 per cent last year after growth peaked at about 30 per cent in 2014, intelligent data service revenue is soaring, although it accounts for only a small fraction of total revenue.

He encouraged operators to work together to develop new ways to revive growth in communication services.

China Unicom is pushing to promote the implementation of the Open Gateway initiative in China to “accelerate the power of 5G this year”, he said. The company is working on an Open Gateway rollout action plan to develop industry best practices and scale up the application of the open platform. 

The company also recently released its 5G-Advanced roadmap, with an eye to boosting network capabilities to enable more industries to benefit from the technology.

The post China Unicom sets tech services target   appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Reacting to a question from GSMA director general Mats Granryd (pictured, far left) on how the industry should best ensure the Open Gateway project doesn’t go the same way as previous failed operator initiatives, Hans Wijayasuriya, CEO, Telecoms & Group EVP, Axiata Group (pictured, middle), highlighted his company’s decision to work with Indonesia’s three other operators to initially launch various API services, rather than go it alone. And this is now a strategy that could be enhanced further.

“It’s important to paint a global industry perspective, almost like a federation, where we implement a global lattice of telco APIs – so you can plug in anywhere in the world,” commented the operator boss.

“Secondly, telcos should collaborate and breed a new form of co-opetition rather than fighting each other like in the consumer internet. Otherwise there is the risk of disintermediation and value erosion, and that $300 billion market opportunity could fritter away quickly.”

Globe Telecom (Philippines) president and CEO Ernest Cu (pictured, far right) was in agreement, reflecting on his company’s announcement this week it has joined the GSMA’s Open Gateway initiative, a project based around developing common open-source APIs to enable faster deployment of new services.

“I echo the comments around standardisation… let’s make sure the certified APIs are standardised,” he stated, before adding it is critical operators keep a close eye on the security of their networks once they are opened up.

Indonesia is not alone in seeing its operators team on the launch of Open Gateway services; operators in Brazil, Spain and Sri Lanka are among markets where rivals have teamed up to ensure new services work across all the country’s mobile networks.

The post Asia heavyweights open up on Open Gateway strategy appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Granryd described China’s 5G growth story as “astonishing”, with more than 1 billion 5G connections forecast by the end of this year.

He noted that one of the main drivers of revenue growth for operators in China is cloud revenue, with cloud now making up 12 per cent of total China operator revenues, a x6 increase since 2020.

Cloud revenue across China’s main mobile operators has totalled $11 billion in the past three years.

5G’s contribution to China’s GDP will also keep growing. By 2030 it will add $260 billion, a doubling from $130 billion last year.

“This is thanks to 5G taking off across industries – from manufacturing to finance, construction to communication. 5G and 5G Advanced will touch almost every sector,” claimed Granryd.

Open Gateway
China is “spearheading and driving” industry progress on the Open Gateway initiative, according to the GSMA director general.

Launched at MWC Barcelona 23 as a way for the mobile industry to open up 5G networks and enable developers to establish APIs to be used globally (a market opportunity of up to $300 billion according to GSMA), the project now has China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom on board, together accounting for nearly 30 per cent of the scheme’s certified APIs globally.

Last month China Telecom also opened the first Open Gateway Open Lab in Beijing.

Pivotal moment for AI
Meanwhile the hot topic of AI was of course a major theme of Granryd’s opening keynote.

“Here in China, we’ve seen incredible progress since LLMs, were released. About 40 per cent of global LLMs are now developed in China, and I know China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom are all working on developing AI models and services that can be sold to enterprises.”

Granryd was keen to point out that while AI is a huge opportunity, the mobile industry also has only one chance to get it right.

“Right now we are at a crossroads… we need to make sure we take the right path. The path where we pay attention to developing this technology ethically and where we leave no one behind.”

Closing China’s usage gap
Finally, the GSMA boss highlighted China’s efforts to reduce the mobile internet usage gap in recent years.

By next year 86% of China’s population will be fully covered and connected to mobile internet. Of course that means a significant number – 160 million – are still not using mobile internet (mostly the young and elderly).

“So we must keep working to make sure that we’re closing the usage gap and the coverage gap so that everyone has the chance to benefit,” stated Granryd. “As our world becomes more digital, we can’t afford to leave anyone behind.”

The post GSMA’s Granryd trumpets China 5G lead appeared first on Mobile World Live.

James Zhang, SVP, reviews the market sectors offering the most opportunity for new 5G revenue streams and the challenges ahead.

The post Partner Interview: ZTE appeared first on Mobile World Live.

MWC Shanghai 2024 runs 26-28 June at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC) and Kerry Hotel Pudong, drawing in more than 150 speakers and about 250 exhibitors, sponsors and partners from across the mobile ecosystem. Sub-themes cover 5G and Beyond, AI Economy and Manufacturing DX.

Keynote 1 features the chairmen from China’s three major mobile operators, which continue to record solid growth following continued network investments. The operators’ capex, about double the capital intensity of many other markets, remains elevated almost five years after first launching 5G services.

GSMA CMO Lara Dewar (pictured, left) told Mobile World Live that by the end of 2024 half of China’s mobile connections will be on 5G networks. She highlighted the pace of innovation in China, noting she always looks forward to the event to see the vast range of services being implemented across industries supported by 5G infrastructure.

She also highlighted being impressed by “some cool things” coming to the smartphone realm, such as foldable screens, AI powering digital assistants as well as enhanced designs local vendors are delivering to consumers.

During Keynote 1, GSMA director general Mats Grannryd will lead a panel discussion with Globe Telecom and Axiata Group about Open Gateway in context of Asia Pacific.

Sun Media Group’s Yang, a former broadcast journalist and leading one of China’s top private media groups, joins Huawei executive director of the board David Wang, ZTE CEO Xu Ziyang and Honor CEO George Zhao in Keynote 2 on the topic of AI First.

Adjacent sectors
While the event is held in Shanghai, Dewar noted the GSMA is committed to diversity, both geographically and across industries. She said GSMA is reaching out to speakers from across the region and working to attract overseas attendees to ensure it has an international flavour.

MWC Shanghai has broadened its focus from pure mobility, with 30 per cent of attendees last year representing adjacent industries. “I think that’s a trend that we’re going to continue to see, and I think it’s good for the ecosystem,” clearly demonstrating the world’s growing reliance on connectivity.

Outside of China, keynote speakers include CEO of business development at Singtel Anna Yip, Globe Telecom president and CEO Ernest Cu, CEO of Axiata Group’s telecoms business Hans Wijayasuriya and Qualcomm CFO and COO Akash Palkhiwala.

Senior executives from Ant Group, Amazon Web Services, AutoFlight, self-driving car tech company AutoX, Capitallink and Beijing Unionpay Card Technology are also lined up to present.

Showfloor
The exhibition is spread across five halls at SNIEC. Amazon Web Services and Spacecom will be exhibiting for the first time.

New this year is Connected Industries, a major feature at MWC Barcelona. The dedicated area for connected businesses and organisations will take a region-specific focus, under the themes of Manufacturing and Smart Mobility.

Dewar noted the space was very successful in Barcelona. “I mentioned the importance of bringing the verticals into these spaces at the events, but it’s also important for us to bring it into our community from a membership perspective as the organiser of the event.”

MWC Shanghai also will host the finalists of the GSMA-China Telecom Open Gateway Hackathon, which takes place over the course of 48 hours starting on 25 June.

The CMO explained Open Gateway is a key priority, and as part of the initiative the GSMA aims to engage the developer community, which sometimes has been “difficult for us to make inroads in the last several years”. The idea behind that hackathon, and its partnership with China Telecom, is about getting developers to innovate in a condensed two-day session.

With attention always on attendee numbers, she insisted the raw attendance figure is not the GSMA’s top focus. “We pay a lot more attention to the quality,  looking for C-suite executives,” noting the show is about bringing the decision makers to the table. “We don’t think we’ll be back to pre-Covid levels, as we saw in Barcelona, but we’re happy with the trajectory.”

Industry leaders will have the opportunity to participate in the Digital Leaders Programme and join policymakers at regional roundtables dedicated to APAC, LATAM and MENA.  

The post Preview: MWC Shanghai heats up as global innovators gather appeared first on Mobile World Live.