Review of 2021丨Highlights of the three major operators

2021 is the first year of implementation of my country's "14th Five-Year Plan" and a key year for implementing the planning goal of "creating new advantages in the digital economy." We are in a critical period of building a cyber power and digital China and promoting high-quality development of the information and communication industry.

Last year, my country's telecommunications industry grew against the trend despite the impact of the epidemic. From January to November this year, my country's telecommunications business revenue totaled 1,345.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.1%. The total volume of telecommunications business calculated at the same price as last year was 1,542.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 27.7%.

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Keywords for China Telecom in 2021: Network is the foundation, cloud is the core, network follows cloud, and cloud and network are integrated

The core of building an intelligent and comprehensive digital information infrastructure is twenty-four words, namely: high-speed ubiquitous, integration of heaven and earth, cloud-network integration, intelligent and agile, green and low-carbon, and safe and controllable. At the 2021 International Digital Technology Exhibition and Tianyi Intelligent Ecosystem Expo, China Telecom Chairman Ke Ruiwen delivered a keynote speech and said that China Telecom believes that cloud-network integration is the core feature of intelligent and comprehensive digital information infrastructure. It is the first in the industry and actively practices it. In November 2020, it released the "Cloud-Network Integration 2030 Technology White Paper", which clearly put forward the 16-character development principle of cloud-network integration: "network is the foundation, cloud is the core, network follows the cloud, and cloud-network integration", and continuously enriched and added the two important features of "safe and controllable" and "green and low-carbon". Cloud-network integration focuses on the integration of three major resources: network, computing power, and storage, and has greater connotations and scope. The future cloud-network integration will allow the cloud and the network to react chemically, realize the unification of the technical base, operation management, and supply methods, thereby forming a true digital platform and realizing the service-oriented nature of various capabilities.

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Ke Ruiwen, Chairman of China Telecom

At the same time, Li Zhengmao, general manager of China Telecom, released the China Telecom Science and Technology Innovation Plan, proposing to build China Telecom into a technology-based enterprise that independently controls key core technologies, enter the first camp of national science and technology innovation enterprises, and strive to become a leading technology enterprise and a national strategic science and technology force. China Telecom will focus on clarifying key scientific research areas, building a strong scientific research organization team, and strengthening scientific research ecological cooperation, and increase its efforts to ensure the smooth realization of the vision and goals of scientific and technological innovation.

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Li Zhengmao, General Manager of China Telecom

Six major announcements to consolidate the foundation of intelligent and comprehensive digital economy

Achievement 1: Tianyi Cloud 4.0 distributed cloud released. With cloud-network integration strategy as the core, Tianyi Cloud upgraded distributed cloud infrastructure, cloud operating system, and cloud product capabilities, and launched Tianyi Cloud 4.0, realizing one cloud with multiple forms, one cloud with multiple cores, one cloud network, consistent architecture, unified scheduling, and unified operation and maintenance. Tianyi Cloud 4.0's edge cloud can be deployed in customer computer rooms such as parks, factories, and governments at all levels, and can also be deployed in China Telecom's regional computer rooms to provide rich and multi-form edge cloud services. At the same time, China Telecom has joined forces with 3,200 internal and external industry chain partners to deeply customize and create a wealth of industry solutions and cloud applications, jointly build a new ecosystem, share new formats, and support the digital transformation of thousands of industries.

Achievement 2: "China Telecom AI+ Plan" released. China Telecom proposed the "China Telecom AI+ Plan" to build a four-level AI computing network, focusing on eight major areas such as computer vision, intelligent decision-making, and federated learning, and jointly create an AI+ algorithm cabin by combining independent research and development with cooperative innovation. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, 20,000 AI scenario algorithms will be developed to enable scenario applications in the digital economy, digital life, and digital governance, and use technologies such as 5G+Tianyi Cloud+AI to enable digital transformation in thousands of industries.

Achievement 3: Release of cybersecurity products. Relying on security capabilities covering "cloud, network, edge and terminal", China Telecom has realized network security integration and provided users with a variety of security digital products such as "Tianyi Security Brain" and "Tianyi Security Butler", helping users build a new smart and safe life on the cloud. In addition, China Telecom has also built a "gas monitoring cloud" supported by information technologies such as Tianyi Cloud and NB-IOT to protect public safety. Actively participate in research in the frontier field of quantum security, give full play to corporate advantages, and promote the transformation of scientific research results.

Achievement 4: Tianyi Visual Network was released. China Telecom accelerated the layout of the Tianyi Visual Network with full coverage, wide connection, high intelligence and full openness, and launched Tianyi Home Guard for the public, Tianyi Cloud Eye series products for the industry and full-scenario solutions.

Achievement 5: Key digital life products released. Relying on the advantages of three-gigabit networks and based on the cloud-network integration foundation, China Telecom has created digital home products and solutions focusing on whole-house intelligence, Tianyi Home Security, and Tianyi Cloud Disk; smart community products and solutions focusing on smart access control, community monitoring, and smart property management; digital rural products and solutions focusing on smart large screens, Tianyi Cloud Broadcast, and Village Sharing, etc., providing full-scenario digital beautiful life services for families, communities, and villages.

Achievement 6: Release of a series of industrial digital products. China Telecom launched a cloud platform capability base and industry application products for key industries to boost the scale development of the digital economy. Focusing on the four typical applications of "cloud, intelligence, empowerment, and data", it provides efficient digital management tools for industrial digitalization and social governance and people's livelihood.

Keywords for China Mobile in 2021: Digital transformation, intelligent computing

Information technology is increasingly integrated into all areas of the economy, society and people's livelihood. The digital economy is developing at an unprecedented speed, with a wide range of radiation and a profound impact. New infrastructure is accelerating its upgrading and promoting the development of digital productivity. New factors such as technology and data are efficiently integrated and configured to release greater value of digital production materials. Under the joint action of digital productivity and digital production materials, the new generation of information technology is deeply integrated with the real economy, and the potential of new momentum is constantly stimulated, leading to a deep transformation of digital production methods and accelerating the development of the digital economy.

Yang Jie, Chairman of China Mobile

At the "2021 China Mobile Global Partner Conference", Yang Jie, Chairman of China Mobile, stated that developing the digital economy is a strategic choice to adapt to the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation. China Mobile will bravely take on the main force of building a strong network country, digital China, and smart society, anchor the goal of becoming a world-class information service technology innovation company, focus on the main line of "digital transformation and high-quality development", and systematically build a new type of information infrastructure with 5G, computing power network, and smart middle platform as the focus, amplify the "pole effect" of information and communication companies to drive investment and promote consumption, and help the digital economy flourish.

• The first is to build a first-class 5G network to ensure that by the end of 2022, 5G continuous coverage in townships and above across the country, as well as effective coverage of important parks, hot spots, and developed rural areas, will be achieved, providing high-speed, mobile, secure, and ubiquitous "connectivity services" to enable digital production, serve digital life, and support digital governance.

• The second is to build a ubiquitous and integrated computing network, promote the application of computing network in more fields such as national governance, social livelihood, upgrading and transformation of traditional industries, domestic and international market expansion, and make computing power a social-level service that can be "accessed at one point and used immediately" like water and electricity. The third is to build an open and shared smart middle platform, coordinate and promote the coordinated linkage of "business + data + technology" middle platforms, and output "capability services" with unified packaging and flexible call.

Focusing on building a new information service system of "connectivity + computing power + capability", promoting the realization of ubiquitous network, ubiquitous computing power and all-encompassing intelligence, prospering the digital economy and creating an intelligent computing future, Yang Jie put forward three initiatives to all sectors of the industry at the "2021 China Mobile Global Partner Conference".

• First, we will work together to promote 5G to achieve greater social benefits. We will jointly formulate 5G R17 and subsequent versions of international standards, promote innovation and breakthroughs in basic theories and core technologies of information and communications, accelerate network coverage, vigorously develop multi-mode, multi-frequency, and multi-form smart terminals, accelerate the expansion of rich and colorful product services and application demonstrations, improve 5G network security, and accelerate the integration of 5G into various industries and serve the public.

• Second, we are committed to promoting collaborative innovation in computing power networks. We will formulate computing power network technology routes, target architectures, and standard systems, jointly tackle common industry chain issues such as security and energy consumption, coordinate the use of cross-regional and cross-operating computing power resources, explore cross-industry and cross-industry computing power network joint experiments, and promote the green, safe, and healthy development of computing power networks.

• Third, we are committed to jointly promoting the empowerment of smart middle-end applications. Focusing on related fields such as industrial development, technological evolution, and application needs, we will widely gather high-quality capabilities of industry partners; optimize the unified portal of the middle-end, accelerate the orderly, high-quality, and compliant opening of capabilities, jointly explore new commercial application scenarios, and support the whole society to "go to the cloud, use data, and empower intelligence."

At present, China Mobile has built more than 650,000 5G base stations, with more than 360 million 5G package users, built the world's largest SA independent network, created more than 5,000 5G projects, and launched new private network capabilities of dual-domain connection, computing network integration, and master-slave guarantee, providing industry users with safe, reliable, flexible, customizable, manageable and controllable high-quality 5G private networks. In terms of computing power, China Mobile actively deploys 5G edge cloud networks, and edge computing nodes have been deployed in 23 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities), creating an autonomous and controllable 5G edge computing platform to realize on-demand call of 5G network capabilities. In terms of capabilities, China Mobile's 9 one industry platform is committed to becoming a leading industry enabling facility. It has accumulated 108 applications in vertical fields such as smart cities, education, and medical care, serving more than 60 million users.

Keywords for China Unicom in 2021: Strengthening the foundation, adhering to the right path and innovating, and integrating and opening up

At the 2021 China Unicom Partner Conference, Liu Liehong, Chairman of China Unicom, announced that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China Unicom's corporate positioning is to become the national team of digital information infrastructure operation and service, the main force in the construction of a network-strong digital China smart society, and the vanguard of digital technology integration and innovation, and to comprehensively build a first-class intelligent comprehensive digital information infrastructure in terms of breadth, thickness, and depth, to help thousands of industries "go to the cloud, use data, and empower intelligence" to develop. According to the new positioning, China Unicom's corporate strategy has been upgraded to "strengthening the foundation, adhering to the right path, and integrating and opening up", that is, strengthening the foundation of the network, consolidating the foundation of services, adhering to the right path of networking, and creating new digitalization and intelligence. At the same time, it integrates elements and integrates the market to expand business space with partners. ​

Liu Liehong, Chairman of China Unicom

Precise positioning: Five major businesses embark on a new journey

Under the guidance of the new strategy, China Unicom will comprehensively expand the main channel of digital economy in the future and focus on developing the five main businesses of "big connection, big computing, big data, big application, and big security".

"Big connection" includes 5G premium network, Gigabit broadband premium network, government and enterprise premium network and Internet of Things. China Unicom will use high-quality network to serve thousands of industries and various application scenarios, realize the leap from "basic connection" to "intelligent connection of all things", and build a solid foundation for the development of digital economy. "Big computing" means that China Unicom will focus on building a "Unicom Cloud" that integrates cloud and network, is secure and reliable, customized, and multi-cloud collaborative, providing excellent computing power network layout for digital needs of different dimensions and levels. "Big data" contains great value. China Unicom will enhance the integration capabilities of big data, AI, and blockchain technologies, improve the data product system, and empower the industry to promote quality and efficiency changes. "Big application" means that China Unicom will fully integrate internal and external resources, focus on expanding the integrated and innovative applications of the industrial Internet, deepen the layout of key vertical industries, people's livelihood, government affairs applications and other fields, and help thousands of industries to upgrade to digitalization and intelligence. "Big security" is related to the overall development of the country and all walks of life. In the future, China Unicom will build a secure and reliable first line of defense in cyberspace and serve as a strong guardian of the new digital information infrastructure.

The five major businesses complement and integrate with each other, forming China Unicom's overall blueprint for serving the digital and intelligent development of the national economy.

Cloud-network integration: serving a wide range of industries

As the unified computing power base for "big computing" business, China Unicom Cloud will comprehensively enhance the "connection + perception + computing + intelligence" computing network service level and create the "first computing power engine" for the digital economy.

The technical upgrade of China Unicom Cloud mainly includes five aspects. First, the application of cloud native technology supports China Unicom's intensive business system, stably carries the core business operations of 400 million users, and creates a large-scale cloud native technology practice with more than 300,000 containers online in real time, providing reliable computing power support for the digital transformation of government and enterprises; second, the distributed cloud cross-domain integration realizes four-level cloud network coverage, second-level cross-domain scheduling, and one-click release of 5G applications, deepening the coordinated integration of 5G cloud and network; third, promotes the independent controllability, security and reliability of core technologies, and realizes independent control from cloud operating system to basic software and hardware; fourth, promotes the digital and intelligent integration of PaaS products, supports hundreds of millions of IOT connections, provides rich artificial intelligence atomic capabilities, blockchain general service components and self-developed applications, realizes intensive operation and integrated agile delivery; fifth, cloud and network integration, deep integration of computing power and network, and creates an integrated service of "one network connects multiple clouds, one-click network dispatching clouds".

Liang Baojun, deputy general manager of China Unicom, said that the fully upgraded Unicom Cloud will provide more than 280 IaaS and PaaS products to the market to meet the cloud needs of customers in general scenarios. Based on the core base capabilities of the Unicom Cloud 3.0 operating system, China Unicom will build seven scenario clouds, including IoT perception cloud, data storage cloud, intelligent video cloud, ​Smart Chain ​collaborative cloud, 5G edge cloud, autonomous and controllable cloud, and hybrid cloud, to provide strong support for different scenarios and applications with different needs.

Smart Brain: Building an Intelligent Center for Operators

At this conference, He Biao, deputy general manager of China Unicom, officially released the Unicom Smart Brain product. Since 2015, China Unicom has been actively exploring and developing Smart Brain technology, and has now achieved "five 100%s": 100% intensive and comprehensive cloud migration of the entire group's core business systems, 100% intensive and smart services for customer service systems, 100% intensive and efficient and agile smart middle platforms, 100% intensive and intelligent empowerment of big data, and 100% intensive and flexible digital bases.

Smart Brain is a comprehensive intelligent platform that integrates technologies such as big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Its core function is to achieve data-based management and service innovation by collecting, integrating and analyzing data from various fields within the system, and to achieve "perceptible, aggregated and thinking". China Unicom's Smart Brain has achieved its predetermined goals both internally and externally.

Internally, China Unicom's Smart Brain has achieved 100% Internetization of all businesses, fully driven digital operations, and greatly promoted the visualization and lean development of China Unicom's "end-to-network-industry-service-finance". Externally, China Unicom's Smart Brain has agilely empowered and driven the scale development of industry joint innovation; it has opened up the innovation chain and supply chain of 2B, 2G, 2C, 2H, and 2P consumer demand and product services. In addition, China Unicom's Smart Brain also shoulders the important task of supporting the country's "network power", "digital China", and "smart society" strategies, and has demonstrated unique advantages in tasks such as epidemic prevention and control, resumption of work and production, helping the elderly and the disabled, and combating telecommunications fraud.

Leading the whole from the point: Leading industrial innovation

The digital and intelligent development of the economy and society cannot rely on one or two companies, but requires the cooperation and close collaboration of the entire ICT industry and various industries. In order to promote industry collaboration and industrial innovation, China Unicom officially launched the "China Unicom Technology Innovation Cooperation Torch Plan" at this conference to enable joint innovation among the five major business ecosystem partners.

According to the plan, China Unicom will build a "1 +3 +5 +N" scientific and technological innovation cooperation system through top-level design and comprehensive planning. "1" refers to a blueprint for cooperation. China Unicom will focus on five major business areas, focusing on key areas such as independent control, computing and network integration, green and low-carbon, and industry applications, and carry out all-round and in-depth cooperation with partners. "3" refers to the three cooperation modes of joint research and development, platform cooperation, and strategic investment based on the needs and resources of partners. "5" refers to five empowerments, providing support and assistance to partners in five ways: establishing a cooperative innovation application demonstration base, replicating innovative products on a large scale and promoting them nationwide, establishing a mechanism for sharing cooperation results, and coordinating procurement and research, and coordinating production and investment. "N" refers to N forms. China Unicom will cooperate with ecological partners in a variety of forms such as industrial alliances and joint laboratories.

Time flies, and the Xinchou era is peaceful and smooth; we must work hard to make progress. Looking back at 2021, my country's digital economy has maintained a strong momentum of development, and the information and communication industry has provided an important driving force for the high-quality development of my country's economy. Looking forward to 2022, the construction of digital infrastructure represented by 5G construction is expected to accelerate, and sub-sectors such as smart cars, the Internet of Things, and the energy Internet will continue to grow at a high rate, and the overall recovery of the industry will exceed expectations.