5G offers ‘golden opportunity’ to revolutionise society as electricity did, Huawei leader tells Web Summit

Speaking during the opening keynote of Web Summit, Guo Ping, Huawei’s Rotating Chairman, encouraged the global developer community to take advantage of the golden opportunity offered by 5G which has the potential to revolutionise society as electricity did.

In his speech entitled “5G + X will create a smart new era”, he described how, in combination with technologies such as AI, big data, virtual reality(VR) and augmented reality(AR), 5G+X could unleash a new wave of growth much like electricity did in the 20th century. However, he emphasized that it is the applications and software built on top that generate true value as demonstrated in the Internet era which showed that app developers typically get the lion’s share of profits, and their income increases most rapidly.

5G is arriving sooner than expected

The new experiences delivered by 5G have been warmly welcomed by consumers and more than 60 commercial 5G networks are expected to be operational by the end of the year.

In South Korea, one million users signed up for 5G within the first 69 days of its deployment. When 4G was rolled out, it took 150 days to amass the same number of users. The arrival of 5G is also a boon for operators since the average 5G user consumes three times as much data as a 4G user. “With high speed, ultra-low latency and massive connections?5G can ensure a superior experience for the Internet of Things. In the future, 5G will create countless opportunities for entrepreneurs,” said Guo.

5G + X will drive industry upgrades and applications are critical

Guo used several cases to show how the combination of 5G with other technology like AI, AR and VR can drive industry upgrades. These examples included how 5G enables 8K remote real-time musical collaboration, how 5G+AR+AI can improve the safety of oil refinery workers and increase operational and maintenance efficiency, and how AI can help make medical assessments in real-time. He pointed out that applications and software are what generate true value and the biggest winners will be Huawei’s partners in this market that is worth trillions of US dollars.

Huawei is committed to enabling application development

Guo emphasized that Huawei has been working with carriers to create the foundation for the Internet, so app and software developers can fully unleash their potential. Huawei will be focused on the areas of mobile devices and cloud in the future. He described the programs Huawei has put in place to support developers keen to tap into the opportunities offered by 5G+X.

The company has launched two initiatives: the Huawei Developer Program 2.0 and the “Shining-Star” Program. Huawei will invest US$1.5 billion into the Huawei Developer Program 2.0 in order to expand it to include 5 million developers and US$1 billion into the Shining-Star Program to attract a wider range of high-quality apps to the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem. The HMS ecosystem motivates developers to combine and innovate their apps to be used in diverse scenarios.

Guo concluded by saying: “5G+X is the new electricity and it will be the key enabler of the smart world. Huawei looks forward to working with industry developers and startups to create more 5G+X applications and kick off the smart new era.”