Global MBBF 2024: Accelerating 5.5G & AI Convergence to lead the mobile AI era

KATHMANDU: The Global Mobile Broadband Forum 2024 (MBBF 2024) has kicked off in Istanbul, Türkiye with the theme “5.5G Leads Mobile AI Era”.

More than 1,000 guests from mobile network carriers, ecosystem players, and leaders from vertical industries have gathered to discuss a wide range of topics, from business model innovation to industry development and key technological directions in the Mobile AI era.

This forum was set up to further promote the convergence of 5.5G and intelligent applications to create greater value for the mobile industry. During the forum, Huawei and Türkiye network carriers have jointly provided diverse intelligent 5.5G field experiences.

Also, various players in the Mobile AI ecosystem will be displaying their intelligent connectivity applications for people, homes, things, vehicles, and industries.

MBBF 2024 began with the opening remarks from Ken Hu, Huawei’s Rotating Chairman. “In the future, AI will change everything. Everyone will be able to use it, anytime and anywhere. Mobile networks and devices will play an important role to make that happen, just like what we have done to enable telephones and mobile Internet as a universal service,” said Hu.

2024 has brought both the commercial launch of 5.5G and the unprecedented expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) into our everyday life and work.

Globally, more than 3 million AI-capable applications have been developed, more than the total number of non-AI apps available in the app store. That early commercial 5.5G rollout coincides with the first year of AI adoption in various devices is tremendously significant — it heralds the dawn of the Mobile AI era.

Li Peng, Huawei’s Senior Vice President and President of ICT Sales & Service delivered a keynote on how to maximize new growth opportunities in the mobile AI era. “The mobile AI era is here,” said Li. “We will see new forms of interaction with devices, new intelligent services, and structural changes in traffic models. This will bring huge new opportunities for the mobile industry.”

Li then detailed how carriers can make the most of these new opportunities and drive new growth by reshaping services, network infrastructure, O&M, and business models. He shared how leading carriers around the world have already verified AI service capabilities on live 5.5G networks across a wide range of scenarios for individuals, homes, travel, and business.

“Moving forward, there are two things we can do to capitalize on new opportunities in the mobile AI era,” said Li. “First, we should prepare our networks to support AI. That means boosting network capabilities, especially uplink, latency, and capacity. Second, we can use AI to support our networks. With more complex networks, we can use AI to help automate O&M, optimize network efficiency, and guarantee a solid user experience.”

This forum features boutique exhibitions of new intelligent connectivity for people, homes, things, industries, and vehicles. Across the indoor booths and outdoor fields, multimodal AI devices and diverse Mobile AI applications are presented, including AI phones, AI glasses, intelligent cockpits, humanoid intelligence, AI-generated content (AIGC), digital human interaction, and AI-powered real-time call translation, thanks to the joint efforts of Huawei, operators, and industry players.

Another highlight is the continuous 5.5G coverage across the indoor and outdoor areas of the venues, showcasing the multidimensional capabilities of 5.5G networks and the cutting-edge products and solutions that power them.

The 15th Global Mobile Broadband Forum, with a tagline of ‘5.5G Leads Mobile AI Era’, runs from October 30 to 31 in Istanbul, Türkiye. It will be hosted by Huawei with support from our industry partners GSMA and GTI.

Together with operators, vertical industry leaders, and ecosystem partners, we will share the industry’s latest advancements and explore new opportunities.

Industry stakeholders will discuss how to achieve 5.5G business success in the Mobile AI era, and leverage the success of 5G to attain even greater achievements with 5.5G.