China Unicom pushes 5G-A for machine data

The network is expanding beyond sports venues into wider city applications.

China Unicom Beijing Branch is expanding a 5G-Advanced (5G-A) network designed to handle rising data uploads from artificial intelligence (AI) devices and robots, after testing it on 2,056 competing machines at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing.

The dedicated network slice kept end-to-end latency at about 30 milliseconds during the 22-26 August Games at the National Speed Skating Oval, the company said.

The network targets growing uplink demand from AI phones, AI glasses, robots, and other devices that continuously generate and transmit data rather than primarily consuming content.

China Unicom Beijing launched the GigaUplink network in July using coordinated 3.5-gigahertz and 2.1-gigahertz supplementary uplink networking to provide continuous 100-megahertz uplink coverage in key areas of the Chinese capital.

Live network tests recorded a peak uplink rate of 1 gigabit per second and an average of 397 megabits per second. Uplink rates fell below 20 megabits per second at only 0.1% of tested cell-edge locations.

The Games also tested a robot management platform developed by China Unicom Beijing with Beiao Group. The system assigns each robot a unique network ID to track its location, status, and operations in real time.

“This network deployment is not only a real-world test of China Unicom's network capabilities; it will also help us accumulate valuable network assurance experience for the large-scale deployment of embodied AI,” Yang Lifan, deputy general manager at China Unicom Beijing, told Asian Telecom in an interview.

The company is positioning the deployment as part of what it calls the “Mobile AI era,” in which networks must accommodate continuous machine-generated data alongside conventional consumer traffic.

China Unicom Beijing will build on the experience from its 5G Capital initiative and turn technological development into network capabilities that can be replicated across other applications, Yang said.

The 5G Capital programme, launched with Huawei in 2020, has progressed from 5G standalone commercialisation and a citywide 200-megahertz ultra-wideband network to 5G-A deployments for residential and transport uses.

The GigaUplink network uses Huawei’s multi-band pooling and uplink enhancement technology to combine spectrum from the 3.5-gigahertz and 2.1-gigahertz bands, balancing capacity, coverage, and network consistency.

David Li, president of Huawei’s Wireless TDD product line, said the Games provided a real-world test of the network for embodied AI.

“Networks are about more than speed,” Li said at the event. “Low latency, high reliability, and ubiquitous coverage are equally important.”

The company will work with China Unicom Beijing to boost uplink capabilities and spectrum coordination for multimodal device-to-cloud transmission, he said.

China Unicom Beijing said the GigaUplink network is extending beyond the Games venue to support cultural tourism, embodied AI, and other Mobile AI applications across the city.