Huawei plans to build a new path for AI communication: Large-scale U6GHz deployment to begin in 2 years.

The 6G spectrum layout, once considered a distant plan, has now been brought to the brink of commercial use by Huawei in one step.

At the 2026 Mobile World Congress (MWC), Huawei released the full-scenario U6GHz product series, covering the complete matrix of macro stations, small stations, and microwave, claiming to "solve the current 5G-A capacity challenges and support smooth evolution towards 6G."

Huawei also clarified the timetable: In 2026, Huawei will launch a full-scenario 5G-A solution including U6GHz, and plans to fully support operators in completing large-scale U6GHz network deployment by 2028.

Huawei ICT BG CEO Yang Chaobin shared a set of data on March 3 (local time): The global daily token consumption has grown nearly 300 times over the past two years, and more than 30 million AI Agents have deeply penetrated various industries. Based on this, his conclusion is very direct—the existing network can no longer handle it.

AI multimodal interaction boosts uplink demand by three to five times; real-time decision-making relies on millisecond-level low latency; networks must have huge uplink and downlink bandwidth and deterministic guarantee capabilities.

Over the past year, 5G-A and AI applications have entered a new stage of large-scale development, and major telecom operators are actively exploring commercial value in multiple scenarios.

Yang Chaobin revealed that the first 3GPP standard version for 6G will not be frozen before March 2029. "But the wave of AI development will not wait." He predicts that the next five years will be a key window for the exponential growth of mobile AI services, and 5G-A, with the ability to increase speeds tenfold, is the only technical option capable of meeting this demand.

A spectrum positioning battle has officially begun.

Currently, more than 20 countries around the world plan to adopt U6GHz for mobile communications. ZTE has also exhibited 6G prototype systems during the same period, while Ericsson and MediaTek have completed Pre-6G interoperability debugging. Industry consensus is rapidly forming.

Whether a single spectrum band can simultaneously boost 5G-A revenue and enable 6G evolution, Huawei will take more actions next.

AI Transformation of Communication

Zhao Dong, Vice President of Huawei’s Wireless Product Line, shared a story.

During the Spring Festival, an art museum in Shanghai introduced AI-enabled guided tours, with more than 3,000 users daily. Uplink traffic share reached 63% for the first time—this figure is usually less than 10% in traditional scenarios.

Zhao Dong did the math: "If 10 people use the AI guide simultaneously to explain exhibits, each user needs more than 20M uplink rate. Even though coverage in China is already very good, sometimes the uplink rate is only two to three megabits."

This is just one art museum. When the 30 million AI Agents Yang Chaobin mentioned are rolled out to factories, hospitals, and transport hubs, the network will face a completely different scale of pressure.

The ICT infrastructure business has always been Huawei’s ballast stone, but its largest segment is now in a cyclical transition.

In the first half of 2025, capital expenditures by China’s three major operators declined year-on-year by 9%, 28%, and 15%, respectively. Huawei’s ICT infrastructure business revenue in 2024 was 369.9 billion yuan, an increase of only 4.9% year-on-year. In her 2024 annual report speech, Meng Wanzhou described this segment as "the connectivity industry overcoming the low point of the investment cycle."

Operators are tightening their wallets while AI’s demand for networks is exploding. This mismatch is precisely the logic behind Huawei’s bet on U6GHz.

The core product Huawei launched this time is a 256-channel AAU, integrating more than 1,500 antenna arrays, expanding 5G’s 100MHz bandwidth fourfold to 400MHz. A Huawei technician told Wallstreetcn: "Packing 1,536 antenna arrays in and combining engineering implementation and capacity, 256 channels is the industry’s only one."

The loneliness of the first mover is also its barrier.

Zhao Dong said that last year, Huawei focused on "AI For Network"—using AI to improve network efficiency; this year has transformed to "Network For AI," letting networks serve intelligent agents. Last year’s performance has already materialized— in one province in China, the AI For Network solution shortened fault recovery time by 27%, and increased traffic stimulation in dense scenarios by more than 10%. "Since this path works, I believe the Agentverse concept proposed today can help operators achieve significant revenue growth in the near future."

To catch the wave of AI flooding described by Yang Chaobin, Huawei proposed the Agentic MBB solution, whose core is to have the network shift from 'downlink-oriented' to 'uplink and downlink equally important,' moving from 'best effort' to 'deterministic experience assurance.'

Zhao Dong also disclosed for the first time the AI MOS experience scoring standard for intelligent agents, which is being promoted for ITU standardization. Meanwhile, Huawei and TM Forum jointly launched the A2A-T interface— a customized enhancement for the communications industry based on Google’s A2A framework. "We hope the whole industry forms synergy and stops doing repetitive innovation."

In terms of business models, Huawei Senior Vice President Li Peng provided data showing that more than 30 operators worldwide have launched experience packages. In China, the main 5G-A package users exceed 4 million, with the average ARPU up by 8.5 yuan. Zhao Dong predicts that operators' future revenue growth will come from the traffic increase driven by intelligent agents, tariff upgrades brought by experience assurance, and connection quantity growth due to serving various industries.

"If we introduce this spectrum during the current stage for construction, it not only meets current demand but also future needs for 6G evolution, and ensures investment protection," Zhao Dong said. "I see no reason not to do it."

Five-Year Intelligent Network Offensive

Yang Chaobin’s "five-year window" judgment means that Huawei must push U6GHz from concept to large-scale commercial use before the 6G standard freezes in 2029. There are both tailwinds and headwinds in this process.

The tailwind is clear: global consensus on spectrum policy is accelerating.

In late 2025, the U.S. FCC made a major shift—from previously assigning the entire 6GHz band to WiFi, to planning an auction for the upper band for 5G/6G. In Europe, according to Communications World Net, Vodafone, BT, Orange, and 11 other operators jointly requested the upper band be allocated for mobile communication.

At present, more than 20 countries have planned to use U6GHz for mobile communication. Using the upper 700MHz for mobile communication and the lower 500MHz for WiFi is becoming the global mainstream approach.

The industry ecosystem is also maturing. Wallstreetcn obtained data showing that 374 operators worldwide have deployed 5G networks, 5G-A users reach 70 million, and in the China market alone, more than 135 phone models support 5G-A with shipments exceeding 170 million. U6GHz CPE terminals have emerged, and end-to-end test validations are completed in markets such as the UAE.

However, variables exist as well, and disputes over technology routes are one of them.

Huawei is following an "RF hardware limit" route, while Nvidia and Nokia are pursuing a "computing power takes over network" route—in Nokia and SoftBank’s demonstration, base stations can run third-party AI tasks during idle periods, directly opening a new commercial path of "selling computing power."

The OCUDU ecosystem foundation set up by the Linux Foundation tries to reduce dependence on single vendors by open sourcing base station baseband codes. The three routes represent different industry interests, all attractive to operators.

Still, Zhao Dong says: “Commercial success and network evolution are not contradictory, but mutually reinforcing.” His strategy is to organically combine the evolution of stock spectrum with new spectrum construction, helping operators reduce expenditure and open up revenue growth.

Huawei’s performance has entered a growth bottleneck. Data shows that Huawei’s total revenue in 2025 exceeds 880 billion yuan, with a growth rate of 2.2%.

This is Huawei’s consistent style: the more the industry enters the adjustment period, the more it invests.

Zhao Dong believes: “Our wireless industry only has half a generational iteration every five years, but in the age of AI and intelligent agents, there is a change every six months. Time waits for no one.”

It can be seen that the 300-fold increase in token consumption and the influx of 30 million AI Agents are pushing the communications industry towards a new question: Who will build this new highway? Huawei has given its proposal—use U6GHz to catch the AI flood and use 5G-A to get through the five-year window before 6G arrives.

Leveraging the global deployment experience and industry chain integration accumulated from large-scale 5G commercial use, Huawei is now ahead in this track.

Whether the first-mover products can be transformed into industry standards and commercial roll-out, so that operators are willing to pay for the next-generation network during the industry’s cyclical low—this will be the most critical battle for the communications industry in the next five years.

Risk warning and disclaimerMarkets contain risks, investment requires caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and has not considered individual users’ specific investment goals, financial situation, or needs. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article fit their specific circumstances. If you invest accordingly, you are responsible for your own actions.