On the third day of MWC Barcelona 2025, James Chen, President of Huawei's Carrier Business, took to the stage to share his visionary insights on the transformation of telcos into techcos and the boundless potential of artificial intelligence (AI). With a keen focus on innovation, he explored how AI is set to propel value creation to unprecedented heights, redefining the industry's future.
Addressing an audience of industry leaders and technology enthusiasts, Chen's speech set the tone for a future driven by intelligence, efficiency, and groundbreaking advancement.
The Next Wave of Opportunities
Chen stressed that, the telecom industry must adapt to the changing landscape brought about by next-generation connectivity, cloud technologies, and machine learning (ML). “With the rapid development of 5G, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, consumers and enterprises are demanding new digital and intelligent services. The traditional business model of our industry is facing profound changes,” he said.
He outlined three key areas where operators must evolve to stay competitive. Operators must reshape their business models around value creation, expanding beyond connectivity into digital and intelligent services. Additionally, they need to revolutionize operations and maintenance (O&M) by leveraging AI and big data for optimization. Finally, infrastructure must evolve to support innovation. The integration of multi-element, synergetic networks will provide a strong foundation for next-generation services.
Fivefold Consumer Evolution
Chen continued this train of thought by elaborating on five core aspects: a differentiated monetization model for enhanced user experience, a unified service entry for rich home services, a one-stop cloud platform for unlocking new business-to-business (B2B) opportunities, a telecom foundation model for enabling knowledge-driven operations, and a synergetic architecture designed for future-ready transformation.
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Enhanced User Experience: Consumer services are rapidly evolving, with AI-driven networks enabling new monetization models. For example, live-streaming influencers rely on 5G networks, and when congestion occurs, AI can instantly recommend a VIP package to guarantee seamless streaming. “The moment they accept, their experience is guaranteed, with a ‘VIP Assurance’ badge appearing on their screen,” he explained.
This model requires AI-powered network data analysis, user need guarantee, dynamic bandwidth allocation, and transparent experience assurance. Beyond streaming, similar AI-driven monetization strategies can enhance gaming, business travel, and hotspot connectivity.
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AI-Driven Smart Homes: The future of home services will increasingly rely on AI. Chen shared a scenario where, should an elderly family member fall at home, the Wi-Fi router will detect the incident, sending an alert to family members. “This is just one AI home services scenario. The key for operators is to meet the growing demands of different family members with different services,” he explained.
Leading operators in Korea and China are already bolstering their intelligent home hubs with AI agents. These hubs serve as gateways to various smart home devices, understanding the needs of each family member and invoking the appropriate cloud services. “In this way, [by utilizing] a high-speed fiber network, bundled with an AI agent that can invoke various cloud services, operator[s] can gradually transfer from [a] home broadband provider to an AI services provider,” noted Chen.
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One-Stop Cloud Platform for B2B Growth: AI is also opening doors for transformation in enterprise services. An operator from North Africa, for instance, has expanded its mobile money service into a comprehensive digital ecosystem, enabling everything from ride-hailing to tax payments via a super app.
Chen emphasized that the key to developing a B2B business is “having a unified cloud platform for industries’ digital transformation.” By providing a low-code development environment and seamless app onboarding, operators can extend their service suite beyond connectivity and offer cloud solutions that bridge digital gaps for local businesses.
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AI-Powered, Knowledge-Centric Operations: Chen described how traditional network O&M can be revolutionized with AI. He shared a compelling example: "The sudden interruption of the wireless service can be identified in just three minutes. An AI agent [then] assists the field engineer throughout the repair process. The whole process is automatic, thanks to the telecom foundation model. Without it, network troubleshooting involves entire network elements and many engineers."
To adopt this capability, operators must build digital twins of networks, integrate AI-driven telecom models, and implement knowledge-based automated operations.
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Future-Oriented Synergetic Network Architecture: “Infrastructure is the foundation for everything,” emphasized Chen. He identified that future-oriented networks require three key changes: intelligent connections for seamless data flow, distributed intelligent cloud computing, and end-to-end collaboration across cloud, network, and computing resources.
"The traffic flow is shifting from north-south only to [a] north-south plus east-west traffic model, and network capability is changing from best effort to deterministic experience. Therefore, a future-oriented architecture should consider these changes in three layers," Chen added.
AI: The Core of Sustainable Techco Value Creation
Wrapping up his speech, Chen reiterated that AI-powered operations leverage telecom foundation models—integrating AI agents and copilots into network operations centers (NOCs) and security operations centers (SOCs)—to achieve smarter network management. Additionally, AI-centric infrastructure supports flexible resource scheduling and synergetic networks to meet evolving service demands.
“The AI era has arrived. The best time to act is now. We believe transformation is not the goal; value creation is the essence. Huawei is willing to work together with operators and partners to accelerate the transformation to techco[s] through joint innovation and efforts, continuously creating greater value," he concluded.
