Ken Hu, Huawei’s deputy chairman Photo: Courtesy of Huawei

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei held a 5G industry forum in Shanghai on Thursday, during which it downplayed the impact of the US crackdown and vowed to speed up 5G construction with industry partners to welcome the "golden era" for 5G development in the next 10 years.

The firm held a two-day long 11th Global Mobile Broadband Forum (MBB) Forum in Shanghai from Thursday to Friday, inviting industry players from the country's major telecom carriers as well as representatives and corporate leaders from industry, regulatory and research organizations around the world, to jointly discuss future 5G development and what they've achieved so far.

During the forum, Huawei, together with China Unicom, the country's major telecom carrier, and other industry partners such as Yitong Century and Tencent Games launched "5G Capital Cube," in an effort to build end-to-end network capabilities and a more connected 5G ecosystem.

The cooperation is also an expansion from the deals the two inked In April this year, when Huawei and the Beijing branch of China Unicom vowed to build Beijing into a global benchmark for 5G applications under a project named "5G Capital."

"We will continue to cooperate with China Unicom Beijing to enhance the operation efficiency of Beijing, digitalizing the entire city with 5G innovations. We will continuously explore technologies, standards, ecosystems, and business models, unleashing the potential of 5G Capital and creating a healthy 5G ecosystem to achieve connectivity of everything," Ritchie Peng, president of Huawei's 5G Product Line, said at the launch event on Thursday.

Analysts said Chinese partners and deals are more important to Huawei, especially when its overseas 5G businesses are suffering due to the US crackdown over the past year. Moreover, the central government's emphasis to the construction of new infrastructure, including 5G networks, also further empowers Huawei's 5G business domestically.

A strong local market is a very important foundation of Huawei's 5G development, and a lot of innovative work by Huawei is based on the demand from domestic carriers, Chen Chuanfei, president of Huawei's DIS Product Line, told reporters during a press conference on Thursday.

5G roll out around the world is in the fast lane, and "China has the world's best 5G network," Ken Hu, deputy chairman of Huawei, said at forum the on Thursday.

China has built 700,000 5G base stations so far - more than the combined number of the rest of the world - covering more than 300 cities and connecting more than 160 million users, data from China's Industry and Information Technology showed.

Hu said it is expected that the price of 5G modules will be lowered to $100, and to $40 by 2022, which will further promote the popularization of 5G technology.

"The next decade will be a golden age for 5G. The whole industry needs to have faith, to build the best networks possible for consumers, and to nurture new capabilities for industry customers to maximize the value of wireless networks for a golden decade of 5G," Ryan Ding, president of Huawei's Carrier BG, said at the forum.

Global Times