At the 2026 China Unicom Partners Conference, ZTE Corporation's President, Xu Ziyang, delivered a keynote speech titled "Building the Foundation with Computing and Networks, Advancing with Intelligent Connectivity," outlining the company's strategic vision for the evolution of digital infrastructure in the AI era.

Xu articulated three critical observations regarding the transformation driven by AI. First, the primary connection targets are shifting from "human-centric internet" to "intelligent-centric internet." Second, the fundamental metric of value is transitioning from bits to tokens. Third, network capability requirements are evolving from a traditional download-focused model to one prioritizing substantial uplink bandwidth and deterministic performance.

To address these new demands, ZTE Corporation is comprehensively upgrading its connectivity framework to solidify the foundational computing and network layer. The company is enhancing network capabilities through substantial uplink bandwidth, deterministic service guarantees, and the integration of communication, sensing, and intelligence. It is also expanding connectivity boundaries with space-air-ground integrated networks and improving operational efficiency through intelligent operations, with a strategy to convert differentiated services into scalable, commercial value.

Emphasizing that computing power is the core productive force in the AI era, with networks serving as the essential conduit for its efficient flow, Xu introduced ZTE's "strengthening computing with network" initiative. This strategy focuses on establishing high-quality, low-latency network access for various industries, and building open, decoupled, and flexible architectures for computing clusters. The goal is to enable flexible expansion and extreme synergy, supporting compatible and progressive computing power construction, and ultimately facilitating the widespread benefit and realization of computing power value.

The initiative also aims to create high-speed corridors for cross-regional computing resources to overcome the constraints of single-cluster limitations, thereby unlocking computational potential. Xu stated that ZTE Corporation is committed to being China Unicom's most reliable partner in this journey. The collaboration will focus on space-air-ground integration, all-optical ultra-broadband interconnection, multi-dimensional synergy of computing and network resources, and extending these capabilities to intelligent scenarios.

The following is the full text of the speech:

It is a great honor to be invited to this conference to discuss the new industry landscape of the AI era with all of you. The title of my presentation today is "Building the Foundation with Computing and Networks, Advancing with Intelligent Connectivity." Currently, AI is reconstructing various industries at an unprecedented speed, making the integration of computing and networks a core proposition of the intelligent era.

Foreseeing the Future: Three Judgments on Network Evolution

At this critical juncture of industrial transformation, we must first answer the question: What fundamentally distinguishes the digital infrastructure of the AI era from that of the past? I have three core judgments on this.

The first is the change in connection targets. According to official data from CloudFlare, by June 2026, all non-human traffic (including search engine crawlers and AI crawlers) will constitute 57.4% of total web traffic. In simple terms, more than half of the entities browsing the internet will no longer be human. Concurrently, AI is moving from the digital realm to the physical one. New entities like intelligent agents and embodied intelligence both consume network and computing resources and directly produce work value. This will inevitably lead to a hundredfold or even thousandfold increase in the demand for cloud-edge-device synergy. The shift from "human-centric internet" to "intelligent-centric internet" represents a fundamental leap in the nature of connectivity.

The second is the change in measurement standards. China's daily token call volume has grown over a thousandfold in the last two years. Goldman Sachs projects that global AI infrastructure capital expenditure will reach $1.6 trillion by 2031, demonstrating momentum on both the supply and demand sides. In the past, we measured traffic in bits. Today, tokens are becoming the unit of value in the intelligent era—this is a fundamental restructuring of the value logic.

The third is the change in capability requirements. Traditional networks are built around downloading. However, AI multi-modal interaction brings a ninefold explosive growth in uplink traffic, and the demand for network determinism in intelligent agent collaboration will continue to rise. This signals a fundamental shift in the network capability paradigm.

Enhancing Capabilities to Strengthen the Computing and Network Foundation

To meet the connectivity demands of the AI era, ZTE Corporation is promoting a comprehensive upgrade of connectivity along the path of "strengthening network capabilities—improving operational efficiency—innovating business models."

Network capability enhancement focuses on three dimensions. First, breaking through the uplink bottleneck through enhancements in the frequency and spatial domains, achieving a gigabit experience for scenic areas in Shanxi and providing a solid foundation for new business formats like immersive tourism. Second, integrating determinism as a native network capability to provide stable guarantees for intelligent agent collaboration and industrial AI control. Third, upgrading the network to be a carrier of "communication, sensing, and intelligence" integration, enabling precise drone detection for smart border defense in Jilin and weaving an AI perception defense line.

Simultaneously, ZTE Corporation is advancing space-air-ground integrated upgrades to expand connectivity boundaries. The self-developed 128-beam phased array antenna is internationally leading, and the satellite-borne processing unit supports a capacity of 100Gbps with a 30% reduction in latency. The Tbps-level inter-satellite routing constructs a high-speed, seamless backbone. The company, in collaboration with China Unicom, has taken the lead in completing NR NTN low-orbit satellite in-orbit tests and service validation, marking a critical step towards the commercialization of space-air-ground integrated communications.

Focusing on intelligent operations, ZTE Corporation has developed over 20 expert intelligent agents to help China Unicom advance towards L4-level high-level autonomous networks. These have been deployed across 11 provinces, reducing wireless fault repair time by over 20% and decreasing 5G site energy consumption by 15%.

The company is also converting capability upgrades into business value growth. The "First Class" plan is designed to identify high-value users and create differentiated experiences. In a pilot for value-based campus scenario management with Shandong Unicom, over 3,600 5G-A acceleration packages were sold during the back-to-school period, with a single campus contributing over 100,000 yuan in additional annual revenue. This forms a scalable and replicable commercial model. From fundamental connectivity to commercial implementation, ZTE Corporation and China Unicom are jointly forging a new growth curve for the computing and network era.

Strengthening Computing with Network to Unleash Computational Potential

Computing power is the core productive force of the AI era, while the network is the "artery" for its efficient flow. ZTE Corporation proposes to "strengthen computing with network," unlocking the entire chain of computing access, cluster construction, and cross-domain scheduling.

For various industries, the focus is on creating high-quality, "one-hop" access to computing. This includes supporting BNC deployment and building a distributed token distribution network. Through OLT intelligent computing boards, the network can achieve fine-grained identification of ten thousand service types, and the 1.6T multi-service framing chip reduces access latency by 80%. The first cross-vendor fgOTN pilot on a live network in Shandong has successfully validated its commercial feasibility.

As computing clusters rapidly scale to ten-thousand and hundred-thousand card levels, ZTE Corporation is building an open, decoupled, and elastic architecture. This supports compatible and progressive computing construction, protecting user investment as hardware iteration cycles become shorter, thereby facilitating the ubiquity and value realization of computing power.

A unified computing base is compatible with mainstream computing chips, allowing customers to choose flexibly as needed without being locked into a single technology path. The company also focuses on extreme synergy to ensure computing power runs efficiently. In computing-network synergy, self-developed switching chips enable high-speed intra-machine connectivity and scheduling for over ten-thousand card clusters. In computing-electricity synergy, rack power supports smooth evolution from 8kW to 120kW, and combined with intelligent energy saving and cold plate liquid cooling, the PUE can be optimized to 1.15.

The OEX orthogonal supernode architecture offers flexible scaling: a single cabinet can deploy 128 GPUs, a single Scale-Up pod can support up to 16,000 cards, and Scale-Out can expand computing clusters to over one hundred thousand cards.

Building on this, ZTE Corporation is opening up cross-regional computing arteries to overcome resource constraints (such as power, land, and environmental) of single clusters. The full-series DSP chips and the industry-first C+L integrated solution support ultra-large bandwidth. The high-power amplifier combined with a Gbit-level cache chip ensures zero packet loss over thousand-kilometer transmission, guaranteeing reliable cross-domain computing scheduling. An intelligent 400G OTN has already been commercially deployed in Shanghai. By strengthening computing with network, an ultimate network supports ultimate computing power to fully unleash its potential.

Comprehensive Blueprint for Computing and Network Integration

ZTE Corporation has always been in sync with China Unicom, working together to build a comprehensive and end-to-end computing-network integration capability system. Space-air-ground integration expands connectivity boundaries to ensure intelligent experiences. All-optical ultra-broadband interconnection opens high-speed channels for computing power. Multi-dimensional synergy of computing and network resources improves TPS, assisting customers in building AI factories with optimal TCO. For intelligent scenarios, the computing and network capabilities are extended to consumer, home, and industry endpoints, transforming cutting-edge technology into tangible value and experience.

Moving Forward with Intelligence to Connect the New Computing Ecosystem

Forward we go with intelligence, and the journey will be fruitful. ZTE Corporation is willing to be the most trusted companion of China Unicom, embarking together on a new era of intelligent ubiquity!