China Telecom (00728.HK) (601728.SH) Chairman Ke Ruiwen said at the opening ceremony of the 2024 World Mobile Communications Conference in Shanghai, titled "Grasping the Trend of Intelligence, Deepening Convergent Innovation, and Opening up new stages of 5G Development", that in the past five years, the mainland's 5G has continuously made breakthroughs in technology innovation, network construction, user development, and industry applications, making the development blueprint step by step into a vivid reality, leading and driving the gradual maturity of the global 5G industry. AI will reshape network architecture and operation mode, accelerate the promotion of cloud-network convergence, intelligent agility, effectively improve 5G network performance, improve network efficiency, energy consumption, and customer experience; the broad application of AI in the large model of the industry will greatly expand 5G application scenarios, promote explosive growth in industry applications, and better meet and lead customer's needs for intelligent transformation.

Ke Ruiwen said that 5G is entering the "second half" of promoting comprehensive value release through innovative integration and application of industries. China Telecom will deepen innovation and promotion of 5G integration and application. Depending on the advantages of the digital intelligence of the cloud network and the rich application scenarios, it will comprehensively promote the integration of "5G + cloud + AI + application" and traditional industries. The group will speed up the promotion of intelligent upgrading of digital infrastructure, steadily promote the upgrading of 5G networks, strengthen the strategic layout of 5G-A, increase investment in 6G research and development, and insist on the integrated promotion of 5G-A/6G.

Ke Ruiwen also pointed out that the opening of cloud network capabilities and applications is a necessary condition for the successful implementation of 5G to B. Promoting cloud-network convergence and building an open and cooperative digital transformation service platform will be China Telecom's strategic direction.