Building a Fully Connected Intelligent World Instruction Manual
- June 8, 2024
- Huawei
Table of Contents
- Building a Fully Connected Intelligent World Instruction Manual
- Building a low-carbon society with green technologies
- Building a Fully Connected, Intelligent World
- Tech for a Better Planet
- CONTENT ScommunicateI SSUE 90
- Building a low-carbon society with green technologies
- Driven by our vision & mission
- Wireless access
- Data communication
- Site power
- Data center power
- Slashing carbon emissions everywhere
- On the road to intelligence with smart PV
- AI + PV: An industry first
- Covering device, edge & cloud
- 50-percent higher O&M efficiency
- **Building all-optical green cities with ubiquitous optical technology
- 9-in-1: Optical crossconnect for 3D backbone
- 6-in-1: Opticalelectrical integration for MANs
- X in 1: All-optical anchor point for unified bearing
- Building green all-optical cities
- Three levels of energy savings in
- Network-level energy saving
- Site-level energy saving
- Device-level energy saving
- Low-power chips
- Efficient heat dissipation
- Intelligent dynamic energy saving
- Accelerating environmentalprotection & climate action
- Monitoring and tracking
- Analyze, optimize, and predict
- The ICT sector as a climate leader
- Translating green energy into 5G success for operators
- Starting at the beginning
- Green is trending
- 3 levels of efficiency
- 3 concepts in 3 layers
- At the site layer
- At the network layer
- 5G Power: Site energy gets smart
- Smart batteries
- The race to Open RAN is a marathon,
- 4G/5G RAN architectures
- The concept of Open RAN
- Open RAN standards
- Market transition
- Key challenges
- Viewpoint
- iCooling@AI: Smart cooling for data centers
- AI in chilled water cooling systems
- Using key technologies for smart cooling
- Building green AI-powered data centers with both software and hardware
- Building greener homes with eAI optical modems
- OptiXstar V Series: Three levels of energy-saving
- Enter the Huawei eAI ONT
- eAI ONT for greener homes
- Building smart energy services with IoT
- Main obstacles to IES
- Smart IES IoT
- Refined energy management
- Connecting with nature through green connectivity
- Optical fiber harmonizes connectivity and nature
- How did it do this?
- All-optical cities for a green future
- Smart PV: Breathing life into
- Turning crisis into opportunity
- Under the sun, a desert becomes an oasis
- Powering the world with light
- Intelligent IP networks help
- Tencent implements green data center design
- Working together for a green planet
- A green network for a green paradise
- The optical network is the first step to building a smart hotel
- O&M has never been so easy
- Green optical for green operations
- The return of the big cats
- 100 years of human progress and habitat reduction
- Change, hope, and the return of the big cats
- Technology lights the way
- Humans and nature working towards harmony
- A protective partnership
- Read More About This Manual & Download PDF:
- Read User Manual Online (PDF format)
- Download This Manual (PDF format)
Building a Fully Connected Intelligent World Instruction Manual
Building a low-carbon society with green technologies
Welcome to the new intelligent world – a world that anticipates our needs and
doesn’t just connect us to each other, but connects us to everything we see
and touch.
In this new intelligent world, AI will be as ubiquitous as the air we breathe.
It will be the invisible presence that constantly strives to make our lives
better, dissolving borders, simplifying business, and bringing us closer as
human beings. It is our privilege at Huawei to be the ones that connect the
world to its next leap in civilization – a leap forward where technology lifts
the world higher, bringing digital to every person, home, and organization.
Building a Fully Connected, Intelligent World
Tech for a Better Planet
The devastating bushfires in Australia, the thawing permafrost in Siberia, the record-high temperatures of 20°C in Antarctica – these and other environmental crisesare a constant reminder of the urgent need to protect nature.
On the journey to an intelligent world, we’re committed to realizing “Tech for
a Better Planet” in four key areas: reducing carbon emissions, promoting
renewable energy, contributing to a circular economy, and conserving nature
with technology. This includes developing green products and solutions that
help industries save energy and reduce emissions. We’ve made great progress in
improving the efficiency of resource utilization in production, manufacturing,
and logistics, and working with
global partners to use ICT to conserve natural resources. We base our energy-
saving technologies on environmental impact assessments conducted throughout
product lifecycles. Our full outdoor solution for wireless sites, for example,
reduces power consumption by 40 percent compared with traditional site
solutions. In optical transport, our unique optical fiber printing technology
reduces power consumption by 60 percent. And to popularize renewable energy,
Huawei has integrated IT into photovoltaic (PV), improving the efficiency of
PV power generation. Since 2013, we’ve contributed more than 180 billion kWh
of solar power to the world – the equivalent of planting over 200 million
trees. ICT has also displayed huge potential in protecting natural resources
and biodiversity. Huawei is working with Rainforest Connection (RFCx) to
reduce illegal logging and protect endangered species. Using upcycled Huawei
phones and AI, RFCx has deployed rainforest “Guardians” in 14 countries,
covering 3,300 km2 of forest. In China, we’ve worked with partners to
establish a monitoring system for the Northeast
China Tiger and Leopard National Park, protecting endangered Amur tigers and
Amur leopards and helping them to repopulate. Over the next five years, we aim
to reduce carbon emissions per unit of sales by 16 percent over 2019. We also
intend to increase the average energy efficiency of our main products by 2.7
times compared with 2019. We pledge to continue collaborating with
governments, enterprises, and NGOs in a bid to protect humanity’s home and
build a fully connected, intelligent world for future generations.
CONTENT ScommunicateI SSUE 90
Building a low-carbon society with green technologies
Climate change remains a global issue that threatens our longterm
survival on this planet and that of other species. What
role can technology play in combating these threats?
he digital economy has become the new driving force of global economic growth.
As pillars of the digital economy, technologies like 5G, cloud, artificial
intelligence (AI), Internet
of Things (IoT), and machine reasoning (MR) are being integrated into
different industries, bringing new thinking, models, and practices, and
revolutionizing production and lifestyles. The total value of the digital
economy is projected to grow from US$17 trillion today to US$23 trillion by
2025, when it will account forabout 25 percent of global GDP.
At the same time, climate change remains a global issue that threatens our
long-term survival on this planet and that of other species: research shows
close ties between climate change and the loss of biodiversity.
ICT has a dual role to play in climate change. First, the sector has to reduce
its own carbon footprint. And second it must enable other industries to lower
their carbon emissions.Globally, the development of the ICT industryhas always
been a key driving force in cutting carbon emissions across society. Remote
meetings, for instance, have significantly reduced the number of trips
corporate employees have to make, while systems such as short messages and
instant messaging have greatly decreased the physical media people need to
communicate, such as postcards, greeting cards, and letters.According to the
SMARTer2030 report by the Global Enabling Sustainability Initiative
(GeSI), carbon emissions generated by the ICT industry will start to decline
as a proportion of total global emissions thanks to energy efficiency
improvements in ICT products. By
2030, the ICT industry’s carbon emissions are projected to reach 1.25 Gt,
accounting for 1.97 percent of global emissions. The widespread application of
ICT will also enable other industries to slash their carbon footprints. By
2030, ICT will help reduce 12 Gt of carbon emissions across every industry –
about 10 times the ICT industry’s own carbon footprint.
Over the past decade, technology and product upgrades in the telecommunications industry have driven a continual decline in energy consumption, with the sector playing a key role in helping other industries to save energy and curb emissions.
Driven by our vision & mission
Huawei’s vision and mission is to bring digital to every person, home, and
organization for a fully connected, intelligent world. But we also need to
make sure this intelligent world
is green so it can harmoniously coexist with nature.
ICT has a dual role to play in climate change. First, it has to reduce its own
carbon footprint. And second it must enable other industries to lower their
carbon emissions.
Huawei’s vision and mission is to bring digital to every person, home, and
organization for a fully connected, intelligent world. But we also need to
make sure this intelligent world
is green so it can harmoniously coexist with nature.
Our innovation focuses on providing our customers with leading green products
and solutions. ICT has always played an important role in promoting a better
environment –
whether that’s more energy-efficient 5G networks or data centers (DC), or the
health impact of smart devices. We will continue to empower industries to
conserve energy and
lower emissions, so enterprises that use our technology can also reduce their
carbon footprint.
Wireless access
5G offers 50 times the energy efficiency of 4G in terms of bits per joule. But
with its high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, and massive connections, 5G also
increases network energy consumption. So how can we have our 5G cake and eat
it? By innovating on multiple levels. We use advanced hardware materials,
high-performance algorithms, and new heat dissipation
technologies to enhance product energy efficiency. Technological innovation at
three layers – equipment, sites, and networks – can improve the energy
efficiency of 5G networks, helping operators cut their carbon footprint. For
example, our 5G all-outdoor solution eliminates the need for air conditioning,
reducing site energy consumption by at least 40 percent.
Data communication
In the digital world, DCs, metro networks (MANs), and backbone networks play a
key role in aggregating and exchanging network traffic in cities, regions, and
countries. Routers and switches
in these locations must be ultrahigh performance, which imposes strict demands
on equipment heat dissipation and ambient temperature. To improve the power
supply and heat dissipation efficiency of our products and thus lower energy
consumption while ensuring product performance, we’ve made breakthroughs in
magnetic blowout-based power switching technology, carbon nanothermal
materials, VC phase change heat dissipation, and mixed-flow fans. In 2019, we
unveiled the
CloudEngine 16800 series of switches for DC networks and the NetEngine 8000
series of routers for MANs. In the initial design stage, we focused on the two
major technical
problems of power supply efficiency and heat dissipation efficiency, and were
able to lower the power consumption of routers and switches. Their energy
consumption per bit
is 26 to 50 percent less than other products in the marketplace. Each
NetEngine 8000 X8 router can save about 90,000 kWh of electricity per year.
Optical networks At the transmission network layer, our all-optical backplane technology allows us to print over 1,000 optical fibers on a backplane the size of an A4 sheet of paper. We’ve used this to develop the OptiXtrans series of optical cross-connect (OXC) products, which reduce equipment room footprint by a massive 90 percent and slash
power consumption by 60 percent. In optical access, distributed forwarding architecture evenly distributes traffic to each service board, enabling us to push the limits of efficiency and power consumption. For example, our products achieve 43 percent lower power consumption than the level set out for broadband equipment by the European Union.
For home networks, our AI-based OptiXstar gigabit home optical networking
terminal (ONT) reduces inefficient energy consumption thanks to product
features like automatic
usage sensing and off-peak intelligent sleep. OptiXstar ONT’s consumption is
20 percent lower than that set out by the EU, and each device can save 38 kWh
a year.
At the network level of enterprise campuses,
our all-optical campus solution can shrink equipment room and wiring footprints by 50 percent and energy consumption by 30 percent.
Site power
The increasing maturity of technologies like photovoltaics (PV), lithium
batteries, and AI offers new potential to achieve zero emissions
in site energy. In 5G, we’ve introduced solar energy and AI technology into
our 5G Power site energy solution to maximize the use of clean energy in power
sites, setting us on the
path to achieving zero emissions.
Data center power
Data centers consume huge amounts of energy. We’re using natural cooling
sources applied through our indirect evaporative cooling technology to lower
the energy used by DC cooling systems by 40 to 60 percent. By integrating big
data and AI into the iCooling
solution, the DC learns to save power and can automatically optimize energy
efficiency, decreasing DC power usage effectiveness (PUE) by 8 to 15 percent.
Slashing carbon emissions everywhere
Globally, ICT’s energy-saving and emissionreduction benefits are generally
recognized by all sectors of society – and increasingly expected. We’re using
ICT and working with our
partners to accelerate the wider adoption and application of renewable energy.
By integrating IT and PV, we’ve improved the efficiency of photovoltaic power
generation, converting every
joule of solar energy into more photovoltaic power. Since 2013, Huawei’s Smart
PV solutions have generated more than 180 billion kWh of solar power for the
world – the equivalent of
cutting more than 108 million tons of carbon emissions or planting more than
200 million trees. We’ve introduced renewable energy solutions into our
operations and have built PV power stations on our campuses. We’re also
promoting the wide application of Smart PV around the world to bring clean
electricity to millions of homes. In China, we built the first PV
power plant in our Southern Factory in Dongguan. It generates 18 million kWh
of electricity each year, representing 10 percent of the factory’s total power
consumption. In Saudi Arabia, we constructed the Sakaka 300 MW PV plant with
our partners. Generating enough power or 45,000 households a year, the plant
reduces carbon emissions by 430,000 tons per year. In Argentina, we jointly
built a 300 MW PV plant in Cauchari, which generates approximately 660
million kWh of electricity annually – enough for 160,000 households. We also
help the power industry make better use of clean energy and curb its carbon
footprint with smart digital technology. Huawei used cloud computing to help
State Grid Qinghai construct a new-energy DC
powered by AI and big data, helping more accurately predict renewable energy
yields based on weather forecasts. And with multi-energy compensation, the
total power
output fed into the grid is more stable. As network connections become more
ubiquitous, Huawei will continue to help the telecommunications industry
conserve energy, reduce emissions,
and develop solutions for low-carbon and eco-friendly communications. For
example, optical fiber uses 60 percent to 75 percent less energy than copper.
To help global operators better fulfill their social responsibility for low-
carbon development, Huawei will continue to promote green innovation in fiber
networks, breaking through theoretical limits and developing greener optical
network products. Sichuan Telecom has used Huawei OXC equipment in 12 core
transmission nodes in its network, forming an optical cube bearer network that
can save 250,000 kWh
per year, the equivalent of planting more than 2,000 trees. With the
intelligent era fast approaching, ICT will be applied in every industry. As
the world’s leading
provider of ICT infrastructure and smart devices, Huawei will continue to
innovate to help numerous industries save energy and cut their carbon
footprint and ensure that technology and nature coexist in harmony for a fully
connected, intelligent world.
On the road to intelligence with smart PV
Over the next 5 to 10 years, the world’s major nations and regions will adopt
renewable energy as the main power source for their electric grids. Huawei has
further integrated Smart
PV and its full-stack, all-scenario AI solution to deliver better levelized
cost of energy (LCOE) so that every ray of sunlight is converted into more
electricity.
By Xu Yingtong, President, Ascend Computing Business, Huawei & Chen Guoguang, President, Smart PV Business, Huawei
I is playing a significant role in helping us deal with new challenges, pursue
better lives, explore science, and coexist harmoniously with nature. During
the COVID-19 outbreak, AI has formed a vital part of prevention and control
measures, including analyzing the virus, developing vaccines, enabling
intelligent temperature measurements, and providing auxiliary
diagnosis.Alongside 5G and big data, AI is an important
part of China’s New Infrastructure initiative to drive new technologies, new
industries, and new economies. We believe that AI will spawn new technologies,
products, industries, business, and business models, which in turn will
transform production, distribution, exchange, and consumption. AI’s enabling
power is improving value creation methods across all industries in completely
new ways, and our collective mission today is leveraging this innovation to
transform the world. Since unveiling its AI strategy in October 2018, Huawei
has been steadily and methodically implementing the strategy and promoting AI
product development and commercialization. In 2019, with the launch of the
Ascend AI processor, the all-scenario AI computing framework MindSpore, a full
line up of Atlas products, and Ascend-based cloud services, Huawei completed
its full-stack, full-scenario AI solution – a solution that today has been
widely deployed in all industries, making AI ubiquitous. In recent years,
problems like global resource shortages and environmental degradation have
intensified and we now stand at a fork in the
road for our survival. The only way to deal with the global resource crisis
and climate change is to develop new energy and fundamentally change the
current energy supply model. Led
by photovoltaics (PV), renewables are set to be the main future trend in
energy. But the main challenge lies in increasing the penetration of PV and
transforming it from grid parity to a highquality mainstream power source.
AI + PV: An industry first
Digital transformation is the foundation of intelligence. And the higher the
degree of digitalization, the easier it is to realize intelligence. With the
development of digital IT, Huawei’s Smart PV has remained at the forefront of
three eras of PV development: one, the digital + PV era; two, the Internet +
PV era, and three,today’s AI + PV era.
In 2014, Huawei pioneered intelligence in PV with the launch of the Smart PV
solution. At the core of the solution was the string inverter.Smart PV
transformed these string inverters into
sub-array sensors, supporting precise information collection for each string,
essentially enabling intelligent perception of PV power plants, in turn
facilitating E2E digital transformation.
Between 2015 and 2018, Huawei integrated more digital technologies into PV,
including wireless private network technologies, M-BUS technologies, Smart I-V
Curve Diagnosis, and the
intelligent O&M cloud center, and integrated PV into the agriculture and
fishery industries.
Covering device, edge & cloud
In 2019, Huawei unveiled the first-ever Smart PV solution with AI. In 2020,
Huawei further
integrated Smart PV and its full-stack, allscenario AI solution by creating
core architecture for device-edge-cloud collaboration that will maximize the
value of each PV plant and accelerate the intelligent evolution of the
industry.
On the device side, Huawei has upgraded PV inverters to serve as smart PV
controllers. This enables high-precision, real-time data collection, the real-
time control of string-level energy yield
optimization, real-time DC arc detection, and real-time response to grid-tied
control. It also gives the system real-time inference, execution, and self-
closed-loop control capabilities.
At the edge, Huawei has embedded an AI inference module into the sub-array controller to upgrade it with intelligence. The modules collect real-time device data and an AI model infers optimal power generation in real time, enabling optimal power generation and grid-tied control of sub-arrays. In the cloud, Huawei has deployed an AI training and inference platform on the management system, supporting continuous AI training and optimization of the AI algorithm model without needing to modify existing devices. This enables system energy yields and potential fault diagnosis accuracy to be constantly improved and ensures device and edge inference models are promptly updated in batches for efficient collaboration. Huawei’s full-stack, all-scenario AI solutions have been used across a wide array of industries, including electric power, manufacturing, and healthcare, considerably enhancing the level of intelligence in these sectors. For instance, China Southern Power Grid has utilized theAtlas 200-based intelligent O&M and inspection system. As part of the system, AI cameras installed on power transmission towers can check power transmission lines in real time and detect foreign objects and damage. The unmanned inspection of transmission lines reduces risk to engineers from climbing up pylons and proximity to live lines, significantly improving both O&M efficiency and safety.
50-percent higher O&M efficiency
Over the next 5 to 10 years, the world’s major nations and regions will adopt
renewable energy as the main power source for their electric grids. PV is set
to become the mainstay of renewable
energy. Ensuring the safety, reliability, and costefficiency of power
generation assets will thus become a major challenge.
After extensive consultations with global industry experts, Huawei believes
that the rapidn development of emerging ICT like AI, cloud, big data, and 5G,
as well as power electronics technology, will enable smart PV to create value
in four major ways: lower LCOE, increase powergrid “friendliness”, achieve
intelligent convergence, and boost security and trustworthiness.
In the PV industry, labor costs are the main focus of cost control. PV plants
have traditionally required human labor to complete a large amount of O&M
tasks, which often involves
high levels of risk, repetition, and precision. The COVID-19 pandemic this
year has led to a shortage of workers, reigniting discussion in the industry
around PV-station O&M. Having
previously conducted numerous unmanned O&M trials in response to the pandemic,
Huawei and its many PV customers successfully implemented
unmanned O&M. Huawei’s AI BOOST Smart I-V Curve Diagnosis supports one-click
remote scanning of all PV strings and can automatically output a diagnostic
report for a 100 MW power plant in 15 minutes, including maintenance
requirements, fault diagnosis, and precise fault location for plant engineers.
Unmanned inspections improve PV power station O&M
efficiency by more than 50 percent.As labor costs increase, the traditional
maintenance method involving site visits by experts will be gradually phased
out. AI technologies that integrate extensive expert experience will conduct
diagnosis and make decisions in place of O&M specialists, while heavy,
repetitive O&M workloads will be achieved by drone inspection and robotbased
automatic O&M instead of human workers. As simple, repetitive, and hazardous
tasks are increasingly completed by AI systems, this will reduce labor costs
and improve efficiency, while enhancing speed and accuracy. For instance,
drones equipped with HD or infrared cameras negate the need for manual
inspections and can complete real-time failure analysis and diagnosis with
much higher efficiency and accuracy. Unmanned is certain to be a future
development trend in PV plants.
AI can be integrated into all aspects of the power grid. Our Smart DC System (SDS) integrates previously independent components, brackets, and inverters to form a closed-loop system of bifacial PV modules, trackers, and multi-channel MPPT smart PV controllers, which optimizes the entire DC generation system. The SDS also improves on the traditional astronomical algorithm. Its smart PV controller acts like a smart brain that
can self-learn a tracking optimization algorithm and continually evolve. AI training and modelinguse a neural network to adjust the trackers to the optimal angle to maximize the potential of every string in a PV station. In Suixi, Anhui, tests showed a 1.31 percent increase in actual energy yield over 183 days. In tests on PV solar farms owned by China General Nuclear Power Group and Huanghe Hydropower, energy yield was increased by 0.5 percent to 1 percent. Huawei’s smart solar inverters integrate worldleading algorithm architecture and greater control capabilities, bringing impedance reshaping AI technology and leading gridconnected algorithms, such as dynamic damping adaptation, into the PV industry. The selflearning AI can identify the electrical features of a PV plant and automatically match the gridconnected algorithm to the power grid. Huawei’s industry-leading solar inverters also support high-voltage, direct current (HVDC) scenarios, a minimum power grid short circuit ratio (SCR) of 1.5, high-penetration power without derating, a better connection to weak power grids, and fault ride-through (FTR) capability. In the future, the grid-tied control capability of solar inverters needs to be continuously improved to support connection to weaker power grids, ensuring that PV plants can run stably without disconnecting from the power grid even in the case of low SCR. Huawei’s Smart PV has helped PV stations evolve from grid adapters to grid supporters. Now, it can help them reconstruct the grid and form independent networks so they can transform PV from grid parity to a high-quality mainstream power source. Ensuring safety is also very important.
In an industry-first, Huawei has integrated AI algorithms into the arc-fault circuit interrupter (AFCI), providing more accurate arc detection and faster fault protection, to fully secure the safety of distributed PV systems. AI BOOST’s AFCI has three unique features. First, powered by the AI model, it can continuously and efficiently learn to recognize more arc features, fueled by a database of over 1 million arc features. Second, the strong computing power enables AFCI to actively identify, and analyze more than 92 arc characteristics comparison points, and identify arcs with high accuracy. This means no false positives or false negatives, delivering allaround upgraded protection. Third, it can shut down and cut off the power supply within 0.5 s, which is much quicker than the industrial standard of 2.5 s, helping to prevent fires and ensure rooftop PV plants are safe. We believe that our new AFCI standard is set to become the industry standard both in China and internationally.
AI + PV = a green smart world In the future, AI will be as pervasive as water and electricity. In the PV industry, it will become the new main engine of intelligent transformation. 2020 marks the first year when cloud, AI, and 5G are truly integrating. We believe that we’re poised to become an intelligent society in the next 30 years. Digital technology and new energy are reshaping the world. When PV meets AI, the PV industry will break through its limits and be restructured and redefined. When AI meets PV, a greener world where all things are sensing, connected, and intelligent will come into being.
**Building all-optical green cities with ubiquitous optical technology
**
Fiber has emerged as the greenest connectivity method to date. To
maximize its benefits, Huawei’s green optical network products can
minimize energy consumption in optical transmission sites and build the
foundation of green cities.
uilding green connectivity is a central mission for the entire ICT industry.
According to Huawei’s Global Industry Vision (GIV), by 2025
the average carbon emissions per ICT connection will fall by 80 percent and
the ICT sector will enable global
energy savings and a reduction in emissions that far exceed the energy and
emissions the industry itself consumes and produces. Of the connectivity
methods we’ve used
to date, optical fiber is the most ecofriendly, offering unparalleled
advantages
in bandwidth, latency, anti-interference, and reliability. Compared with
copper, it offers ten times the bandwidth, onetenth the latency, and 60 to 75
percent lower energy consumption.
Reshaping optical transmission sites is a major direction for innovation
across the entire industry. As a leader in the field, Huawei is designing
green optical network products to minimize energy consumption in optical
transmission sites.
9-in-1: Optical crossconnect for 3D backbone
New types of services and network cloudification are driving a shift in network traffic from north-south to east-west, characterized by frequent irregular and random bursts of traffic. This has led to extensive data exchanges between network nodes and a high level of uncertainty in network services, which calls for efficient traffic grooming. In the past, reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) have mainly been used to handle cross-connect scheduling for coarsegrained services. However, traditional ROADMs require many optical fibers to connect multiple modules, resulting in a large number of fiber interconnects in equipment rooms, increasing O&M difficulty and taking up a large amount of space.
Huawei has launched the industry’s only commercially available optical cross-
connect (OXC) product – the OptiX OSN 9800 P32. Harnessing technological
breakthroughs like alloptical backplanes and highly precise liquid crystal on
silicon (LCoS), a single device boasts Pbps-level cross connection capacity.
It is able to replace nine traditional ROADMs, reducing the
footprint in equipment rooms by 90 percent and power use by 60 percent. OXCs
also support up to 32-degree optical cross-connect scheduling. OXCs on
multiple optical transmission nodes
also help build a 3D backbone network, simplifying backbone transmission
network architecture and realizing architecture-level energy savings across
the entire backbone network. Huawei has been working with leading operators
globally, including China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, and Indonesia’s
XL Axiata, to innovate and deploy OSN 9800 P32 products on 50 commercial
networks, covering backbone transmission sites and metro core sites.
6-in-1: Opticalelectrical integration for MANs
When it comes to metropolitan area network (MAN) optical transmission sites,
the explosion in service requirements from 5G, HD video, and enterprise leased
lines has created an immense challenge for MAN architecture. To meet the
requirement to carry multiple services on integrated bearers, operators are
focused on best using the limited space in MAN equipment rooms and
minimizing energy consumption. Huawei’s OptiX OSN 9800 M24
X in 1: All-optical anchor point for unified bearing
As data centers continue to move closer to the user side and network
architecture oriented towards data centers becomes mainstream, the service
volume of the access layer has risen sharply at integrated service access
sites, especially with the rapid growth of services like 5G, gigabit
broadband, and gigabit enterprise. As such, integrated service access sites
have become more
important and operators are prioritizing maximizing the utilization of limited
site resources to support full-service development. And with the requirement
to carry multiple high-value services, operators must maximize network reliability, transmission performance, and automated O&M capabilities, while lowering space and power use in equipment rooms. Huawei’s OptiX OSN 1800 V Pro slashes the equipment room footprint by 75 percent and power consumption by 50 percent. It also boasts access for multiple services, including SDH, PDH, SONET, SAN, and SDI, for full-scenario coverage. Indoor and outdoor cabinets and OLT/ BBU shared cabinets are supported, making it suitable for installation in all cabinets. The product meets bearer requirements for highper formance transmission as well as eco-friendly energy efficiency in the integrated access site.
Adopting OptiX OSN 1800 V Pro will help operators carry 5G fronthaul bearers, premium leased-line bearers for government and enterprise, UHD video bearers, and other such services over a unified platform, and build all-optical anchor points, greatly reducing the number of fiber connections at integrated access sites, accelerating the removal of SDH equipment from the network, and slashing the number of switches. It will thus promote overall energy-saving in integrated access sites.
Building green all-optical cities
From the 3D backbone network and simplified MAN to all-optical anchor points,
leveraging end-to-end OXC and OTN equipment will help build all-optical city
target network architecture that covers all transmission sites in the city.
This will provide one-hop direct connection for enterprises, households, and
individuals in the city using more eco-friendly optical connectivity.
The all-optical target network promotes the flattening of the entire bearer
network, helps simplify network architecture, and integrates and co-opts
multiple types of complex legacy
networks, thus facilitating energy conservation across the entire urban
transmission network. To help end users provide higher-quality connection
services, Huawei has also launched
OptiXstar C800, the industry’s first OTN CPE product. The plug-and-play device
is the size of a book and offers less than 30 watts overall power consumption.
It can fully co-opt old SDH and MSTP leased line services, helping enterprise
clients to switch out multiple more energy-hungry devices from their equipment
rooms, helping end users conserve energy.
With the wide adoption of eco-friendly optical connections across the
industry, Huawei is promoting end-to-end innovation across the entire optical
network to maximize its value.
We’ve launched a series of Liquid OTN products, the first commercially
available in the industry. They refine service bearer granularity from 1 Gbps
to 2 Mbps, expanding the number of connections a hundredfold and meeting the
service bearing requirements for SMEs and large enterprises, households, and
individual users alike. Ubiquitous optical connectivity enables ubiquitous
ultimate experiences. The all-optical target network will accelerate cities’
digital transformation; boost service experiences for every business,
household, and subscriber; and help all industries achieve energy efficiency
with green optical networks. Thus, we will move into the era of green
alloptical cities.
Three levels of energy savings in
intelligent IP networks
For the full-service intelligent era of 5G and cloud, Huawei will pursue network construction concepts, such as super capacity, intelligent experience, and autonomous driving, in its data communications products, and continue to innovate to help global operators build more energy-efficient intelligent IP networks.
he quest for better experiences continues to propel service diversification.
For example, cloud VR lets gamers experience a new level of immersion, 5G UHD
video gives
surgeons the perspective they need for remote surgical guidance, and smart
power grid O&M engineers use 5G private networks for video inspections and
differential signal protection in distribution networks. The integrated
application of technologies like 5G, AI, and IoT is shaping a world where all
things can sense, all things are connected, and all things are intelligent.
With the 5G and cloud era fast approaching, we will see applications with tens
of millions of users, imposing immense demands on network bandwidth and
resulting in a predicted 10- fold jump in network traffic over the next 10
years. The resulting expansion in network capacity and increase in sites will
drive growth in equipment energy consumption costs, which could counteract
some of the benefits brought by new services. The ICT industry currently
accounts for a considerable amount of the world’s total power consumption. For
telecom operators, electricity bills typically account for a sizable portion
of their total operating costs. A large proportion of the vast amounts of
energy consumed is unnecessarily wasted. The IP network converges mobile
services, enterprise services, and home broadband traffic, and connects to
data centers, acting as the basic bearer network. Given this, it makes sense
to maximize network efficiency and build intelligent, energy-efficient IP
networks. The first step is to look at the IP net work from a network-wide
perspective and introduce intelligence with a focus on improving network-wide
resource utilization. The next is to build an ultra-wide network to respond to
the urgent need to increase service bandwidth, improve energy efficiency per
gigabit,
optimize network architecture and topology, simplify layers and network sites,
and lower redundant consumption. Last, the concept of dynamic energy
conservation should be
applied to devices with components scaled out dynamically, enabling precise
energy saving and cost reduction based on various application scenarios. Doing
so can find the best balance between performance, function, and energy
consumption.
Network-level energy saving
Intelligence can be incorporated in the IP network to optimize network traffic
and resource utilization. Traditional IP networks utilize shortestpath-
algorithm routing protocols and besteffort
data forwarding. This approach offers advantages in terms of accessibilit y,
interoperability, and flexibility, but it can also easily lead to resource
imbalances. There might be heavy loads on local links, such as backbone and
metro ingress links, while the rest of the network links light loads. On the
same network at the same time, loads may reach 80 percent or more on some
links but only 10 percent on others. This can cause congestion and packet loss
on certain links, which impacts service experience, while others experience
low utilization and sit idle, wasting energy. Optimizing network-wide
resources and improving utilization can significantly decrease power
consumption and optimize the energy consumption ratio. Optimizing network
links and traffic first requires path adjustment capabilities to flexibly
adjust paths based on various SLA requirements such as bandwidth and latency
policies. But traditional traffic engineering, which involves manual planning
and static configuration, is unsuited to handling complex
traffic scenarios. Based on different service requirements, Huawei’s iMaster
NCE + SRv6 enables intelligent routing, flexible and programmable network
paths, and guaranteed connections.
The solution also supports real-time visibility of network traffic status and
automatic real-time adjustment of network traffic. An innovative ROAM
algorithm provides capabilities of optimization based on multiple dimensions,
such as bandwidth, latency, cost value, and priority, calculating optimal end-
toend paths for the whole network for optimal service paths and balanced
global network traffic. Compared to legacy networks, the network utilization
rate is increased by at least 20 percent and the overall network efficiency
Site-level energy saving
400GE builds ultra-broadband infrastructure networks and delivers optimum
energy consumption per bit. Traditional IP bearer networks are constructed
with a focus on hardware. They’re generally divided into five or more layers:
the access layer, the convergence layer, the metro layer, the backbone layer,
and the service layer. Along with the continuous expansion in network
scale, explosive growth in network traffic, and a substantial increase in the
number of multilayer devices, networks have become more complex and energy
consumption has risen.
IP network interface rates have continued to increase in response to acute
demand from ever-growing service traffic. At the access point, rates have
risen from the gigabit level to 10GE/50GE, and metro and backbone rates have
shot up from 100G to 400G. The nextgeneration high-speed interface technology,
400GE, uses 75 percent less optical fiber
and consumes 20 percent less energy than 100GE, slashing transmission costs
and power consumption per bit and eliminating load imbalances caused by link
bundling on 100GE. IP networks with 400GE-ready convergence, metro, backbone,
and data-center layers will help operators build ultra-broadband networks that
provide an ultimate experience, and dramatically boost their return on
investment.
With trends such as enterprise services moving en masse to cloud and mobile
core network user planes and home broadband content moving closer to the user
side, reasonable network planning should be DCcentric. By simplifying network
hierarchy and the number of sites and devices, the energy consumption of the
bearer network lowers proportionally.
In backbone sites, Huawei has integrated P and PE nodes using an integrated
backbone solution, substantially cutting the cost of backbone network
construction, reducing the network layer from two layers to one, and
delivering overall energy savings of 10 percent. In metro sites, Huawei uses
metro fabric architecture to deconstruct the traditional metro router,
separating network bearer and services. This allows the network to be flexibly
expanded on-demand in scale-out mode, slashing the number of switched
network.components needed in traditional metro scaleup. Overall metro network
construction costs are cut by 30 percent and energy consumption by 50 percent.
The solution also provides large-capacity, non-blocking forwarding
capabilities.
Device-level energy saving
Serialized high-efficiency components + intelligent dynamic design enhances
device energy efficiency. The growth in traffic and pipe interface rates will
inevitably lead to an increase in the
capacity requirements of devices. With everlarger router capacity, the power
consumption of the whole device will rise significantly. Energy-intensive
hardware will lead to a host of problems.
First, energy-intensive equipment will not only bring about higher power
consumption and a sharp climb in operating costs, it will also produce a
substantial amount of carbon emissions. Second, energy-intensive hardware
imposes high requirements on equipment room power supply systems. Air
conditioning and other support infrastructure also need to be upgraded. Third,
excessive internal temperatures will impact the reliability and service life
of energy-intensive devices. Statistics show that a 1-degree rise in
ambienttemperature increases component failure rate
by 10 percent, greatly diminishing reliability and impacting the stable
operations of equipment. Huawei’s NetEngine routers boast low-power
components, efficient heat dissipation, and
efficient power supply technology to break through limitations and decrease
the overall power consumption of equipment.
Low-power chips
Specialist experimental analysis reveals that 80 percent of the energy a router uses is for powering the line card, while 60 percent of the energy the line card consumes is used by the chipset. Therefore, device energy saving mainly depends on the power consumption of the chipset. NetEngine routers use lowpower chipsets (under 0.4 W/Gbit), which consume 30 percent less overall energy than similar products, cutting carbon emissions by 30 percent over the industry average. A single router can save up to 180,000 kWh of electricity and 360 tons of carbon dioxide per year, the equivalent to 10,000 square meters of forest coverage.
Efficient heat dissipation
Mixed flow fan + VC phase change heat dissipation solves air cooling limitations. Most mainstream devices adopt air-cooled heat dissipation systems. In most cases, a heat sink radiator and thermal pad are placed on the chipset and a fan remove the heat from the device, thus achieving heat dissipation. Therefore, the key components that determine the heat dissipation capacity of air-cooling systems are heat sinks and fans. Copper heat sinks and silicone grease traditionally used to conduct heat have low overall thermal conductivity and average heat dissipation effects. Huawei does several things differently. First,
we use a carbon nano thermal pad to convert irregular heat dissipation to directional heat dissipation, significantly improving thermal conductivity. Second, we use a vapor chamber (VC) liquid-gas phase change heat sink. The inside of the radiator has a vacuum chamber with a capillary structure filled with a refrigerant and a low boiling point, which quickly dissipates heat through the phase transition from liquid to gas. The VC phase change heat dissipation and carbon fiber thermal pad technologies can increase chipset heat dissipation efficiency by up to four times and lower chipset temperature by 19 degrees compared to traditional heat dissipation methods, reducing heat build-up in the motherboard and greatly improving reliability.
One of the keys to determine the cooling effect of fans is air volume. The fan blades of typical fans cause airflow disturbances when inhaling air, which affects the amount of air inhaled. Huawei’s mixed-flow fan uses a special fan blade design that decreases airflow disturbance and turbulence near the fan blades, tripling air volume. Fan efficiency is increased by over 10 percent with the same air volume, saving 200 to 300 W per fan tray assembly. Moreover, adjusting the maximum power of raditional fans is difficult. When the overall power usage of equipment fans is high, power distribution requirements on equipment rooms are also high. Huawei’s mixed-flow fans offer software-defined maximum power, flexibly adapting to fan power requirements, and reducing power distribution requirements on the equipment room
Efficient power supply There are three levels of conversion from the external power supply to the power supply unit of equipment motherboard components. Traditional first-level power supplies adopt N + N power backup, which not only takes up more space but also sets certain requirements on the external power supply. Huawei uses the dual-input power supply module with millisecondlevel switching. Adopting N + M backup mode, it offers a substantially smaller power module and a 90-percent power efficiency improvement. The module also uses magnetic blowout technology, enabling fast millisecond-level switching. Backup power supply switchover time is under 6 milliseconds, providing superior power supply reliability. Multi-level conversion results in a loss of energy, so a 1-percent improvement in conversion efficiency in a single piece of ultra-high capacity hardware, which can exceed 10,000 W, can save nearly 1,000kWh of electricity a year. Maximizing the power conversion efficiency of each piece of equipment can, therefore, have a big impact. Huawei’s NetEngine 8000 router products support AC, DC and HVDC hybrid power supply modes and can increase the forwarding rate by 4 percent.
Intelligent dynamic energy saving
IP network traffic is bursty, with high loads when equipment is busy and low
loads when it’s idle. This has led to dynamic energy-saving technology, which
is used in Huawei’s NetEngine routers. As well as offering the typical dynamic
shutdown of unused line cards and ports, Huawei’s NetEngine routers are also
specially designed with dynamic energy-saving technology for traffic. This
allows the number of working network processor cores and clock frequency of
chipsets and the number of SerDes buses to be adjusted in real time according
to traffic, maximizing the ability to lower energy consumption in various
traffic scenarios. Energy conservation is a gradual process that needs to be
considered alongside other factors such as current
network situation, evolution trends, and cost. To choose the right
architecture and evolution strategy the whole network must be taken into
account from a range of dimensions, including
network, sites, and equipment. For the full-service intelligent era of 5G and
cloud, Huawei will pursue network construction concepts like intelligent super
capacity, intelligent
experience, and autonomous driving in its data communications products, and
continue to innovate to help global operators build more energyefficient
intelligent IP networks
Accelerating environmentalprotection & climate action
through Digital with Purpose
Estimates from the United Nations hold that on its current trajectory,
the world will be unable to deliver the 2030 Agenda
for Sustainable Development. How can we make sure this doesn’t happen?
L In its Digital with Purpose: Delivering a SMARTer2030 report, Global Enabling Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) highlights three core pillars of sustainability as key agenda items that must urgently be addressed:
- The biosphere is under threat from rising CO2 emissions.
- Equality is declining.
- The economy continues to drive the unsustainable consumption of natural resources.
Solving these issues, which cut across sectors and transcend borders, requires innovative and integrated solutions — solutions that digital
technologies are well-positioned to provide. Digital with Purpose identifies
seven digital technologies (see Fig 1), chosen as broadly representative of
the way digital capabilities will evolve
in the medium term. Digital with Purpose argues for the utilization of these
seven digital technologies due to their proven
- Digital Access: people to people & people to Internet connectivity
- .Cloud: highly scalable, advanced IT capabilities as third-party services
- .Cognitive: the application of advanced analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence approaches to big data to develop insights
- Blockchain: a system of digital, distributed ledgers of transactions comprising a database of information with an appendonly structure, governed by a network ofcomputers instead of a central party
- 2.Fast Internet: next-generation connectivity personified by 5G that provides speed and capacity at fundamentally different levels
- IoT (Internet of Things): connecting physical objects to the Internet, enabling communication from and to objects
- Digital Reality: virtual digital worlds or systems (VR) or mixed virtual and physical worlds (AR)
Fig 1. Seven Key Technologies for Sustainable Development / Source: (GeSI) Digital with Purpose: Delivering a SMARTer2030
impact on 103 of the 169 total Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets. Delving into protecting the biosphere, Digital with Purpose finds that digital technologies are particularly important in monitoring and tracking the state of the natural world, and analyzing and optimizing energy usage to reduce climate change.
Monitoring and tracking
As the planet continues to undergo immense stress in regards to the environment, developing an accurate insight into the full extent of degradation and the most heavily n affected areas is critical to identifying key environmental indicators. Monitoring and tracking informs key decision makers, as well as the general public, on the immediate actions that can be taken to mitigate or adapt to the effects of climate change. Additionally, digital technologies can keep people, organizations, and states accountable to ensure that commitments are distributed fairly.
Among many issues, Digital with Purpose delves into increased water and energy
usage that result in rising levels of pollution and waste. As a response,
digital technologies, such as IoT
sensors, are currently being used to monitor human usage of utilities, and
it’s through this real-time monitoring that stakeholders can make decisions
efficiently across a vast network.
An example is the work of GeSI member Taiwan Mobile, which uses remote
detection devices to monitor base station energy consumption, gathering real-
time data without manual meterreading, thus reducing emissions from
travelling. The use of Smart Meters also allows Taiwan Mobile to accurately
anticipate and predict the consumption of energy, providing valuable
information for optimization and efficiency. Taiwan Mobile reports that it
saves about 25.4 tonnes per year in CO2 emissions and reduces manual meter
trips by 8,439.
Analyze, optimize, and predict
Another issue explored in the report is deforestation as the major cause of land degradation. With forests covering almost 31 percent of the Earth’s surface, deforestation and desertification caused by human activity is a critical issue that must be urgently addressed as both pose a risk to the global terrestrial ecosystem. Protecting forests is essential as they mitigate climate change-induced environmental conditions and protect watersheds, which account for 75 percent of the world’s freshwater. Additionally, forests reduce the risk of naturalb disasters such as floods, droughts, and landslides. The combination of land degradation and the increase in global population means land shortages and an increase in demand for limited land and resources. With digital technologies such as cloud and machine learning, the remote detection of illegal logging and other harmful activities is possible through the aggregation and analysis of data to design targeted interventions. GeSI member Huawei, in partnership with Rainforest Connection, uses hidden repurposed smartphones or “Guardian” devices to monitor sounds within rainforests and collect data in threatened areas. With Huawei’s mobile network, audio data is sent to the Huawei cloud platform and run through a machine learning framework to be analyzed in real-time. Huawei’s utilization of digital technologies allows not only the detection of species and identification of high-risk areas, but also the location of sounds of illegal logging and initiation of alerts through cloud technology, digital access, and IoT. Looking at current trajectories, the world is not on the path to meeting the goals of the 2030 Agenda, including global climate targets. While digital technologies can make a significant contribution to accelerating action, these solutions must come with transformative changes across economic, social, and political spheres.
The ICT sector as a climate leader
For GeSI and the ICT sector in general, transformative change means leveraging the digital technologies identified as catalysts to push for climate action. Digital with Purpose identifies the ICT sector as a leader in the effort to tackle climate change with Arabesque finding that “nearly 70 percent of companies in the ICT sector are operating in a way that is consistent with meeting…the Paris Agreement to limit climate change to 1.5oC.” For the wider market, only 52 percent of companies are operating to meet these same goals. In addition, the sector also outperforms the wider market in terms of the proportion of corporates with an approved Science-Based Target (SBT) for greenhouse gas emissions. While in 2019 about 5.5 percent of companies around the world have an approved SBT, for the ICT sector this was 11.5 percent over the same period.
-
Recognizing the ICT sector as a key player in sustainable development and climate action, analysis from the report concludes that:
The ICT sector has a critical role to play in enabling progress in achieving the SDGs. It will contribute an estimated 20 percent of all progress. -
This impact will support the forecast growth of the industry of around 4 percent perannum up to 2030, contributing an additional
€2.3 trillion a year to the global economy, increasing ICT sector employment by over 45 percent to nearly 80 million, and increasing R&D by over 50 percent to €378 billion
-
The sector is expected to enable economic growth of between 2.5 and 4 times in the broader economy, reaching €10 trillion by 2030.
-
Emissions are expected to grow by 92 megatons of CO2 over the period, but this is less than the growth in Gross value Added, implying a reduction in emissions intensity of over 28
percent. -
ICT sector emissions need to be considered against the ability of the sector to abate the emissions in the rest of the economy, which is estimated at over seven times the change in emissions from the ICT sector.
-
Public commitments of key players in the ICT sector, together with previous studies, suggest that the emissions footprint could be managed down from this number with the appropriate external environment and interventions.
-
The long-term prosperity of the sector requires both a resolute focus on SDG progress, together with management of the challenges created, specifically in the areas of emission
and resource management, but also around other societal issues such as inequality
While Digital with Purpose demonstrates the strong performance and potential
of the ICT sector relative to the wider market, it’s important to recognise
the need to deepen commitments to reducing emissions as the sector continues
to grow. In addition, the ICT sector has the responsibility to address
negative externalities that come from the development and deployment of
digital technologies such as the misuse of information and e-waste. Multi-
stakeholder organisations and Private- Public Partnerships (PPPs) are
essential in turning these ambitious goals into tangible action, as well as to
keep actors accountable and transparent, ensuring that the Digital with
Purpose vision becomes a reality. Recognized as one of the key multi-
stakeholder processes in building a planetary digital ecosystem, GeSI is proud
to have a global network of members and partners as we build on a global
“Purpose” movement towards the achievement of the
SDGs following the publication of the Digital with Purpose report.
Translating green energy into 5G success for operators
The ICT sector is pivotal to a smart future, but it must also lead the
way into a green future.
And as a heavy energy user, the sector must cut its own carbon footprint
with smart green solutions.
s we hurtle into the intelligent era, it’s time to make saving energy and reducing emissions central to our thinking – both for the planet and for bottom lines.The ICT industry is the linchpin of the smartworld of the future, but it’s also a heavy energy consumer and carbon emitter itself. The World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society (WSEAS) reports that the ICT industry accounts for 2 percent of the world’s total electricity consumption – a proportion that’s rising rapidly to an expected 5 percent by 2030.
Starting at the beginning
5G uses just one-tenth the energy per bit of 4G, but 5G will also create a
surge in power consumption due to the traffic increase that’s predicted to
total dozens of times current
levels. This issue can only be addressed by thinking green from the start – at
the design stage – of large-scale construction. Peng Jianhua, President of
Huawei Telecom Energy, spoke to us about how Huawei has been contributing to
global energy efficiency efforts. As well as reducing its own energy
consumption and emissions and that of its supply chain, Huawei’s Digital Power
division has been providing customer-oriented green power generation and
energy-efficient products and solutions, and strengthening collaboration with
the industry and stakeholders.
“Energy hardware which was a part of the support infrastructure in the past
has now become a linchpin of the network,” says Peng, adding that as 5G enters
more households and is adopted by more industries, ICT will become further
integrated. “The value of site energy will become self-evident. Huawei
believes that connectivity and computing in the intelligent era will only make
sense if it is green,” he says.
Green is trending
As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, challenges such as climate
change, melting glaciers, smog, and the collapse of biospheres aren’t going
away – they’re getting worse. Fortunately, governments and international
organizations have spearheaded global initiatives for energy conservation and
emissions reduction. Meanwhile, technological advances have allowed us to
start addressing environmental degradation. In January 2020, the European
Parliament voted to support the European Green Deal with an overwhelming
majority. The aim of the European Green Deal is for the European Union to
become the world’s first climateneutral bloc by reducing net CO2 emissions to
zero by 2050. In 2006, the Chinese government
started to include energy conservation and emissions reduction in its five-
year plans, since which time it’s made solid strides.
GSMA, ITU, the Global Enabling-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) and the
Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) set science-based emission reduction
targets (SBT) at the end of February 2020, committing to helping the mobile
industry achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Twenty-nine operator
groups, representing 30 percent of global mobile
connections, have already committed to the SBTs. Vodafone has also promised to
reduce its carbon footprint by half by 2025 and purchase all electricity from
renewable sources.
It’s against this background that Huawei’s Digital Power product line aims to
provide solutions for generating green power and efficient power use to help
drive industry transformation towards clean and renewable forms of energy and
efficient energy utilization. Peng says that Huawei Digital Power has four
major areas of focus: photovoltaics, telecom energy, data center energy, and
automotive energy. In telecom energy, its solutions integrate power
electronics and digital technology to help build green network power with
efficiency at three levels – components,
systems, and collaboration – helping to achieve “bits manage watts” and “zero watts if zero bits” targets. As of the first quarter of 2020, Huawei Digital Power’s solutions had helped conserve a total of 273 billion kWh of electricity and reduced CO2 emissions by 170 million tons, the equivalent of planting 220 million trees.
3 levels of efficiency
5G entered a critical stage of large-scale deployment in 2020, ayear after its
commercial launch. According to the latest data from the Global mobile
Suppliers Association (GSA), 80 operators in 42 countries and regions had
launched 3GPPcompliant commercial 5G services as of mid-May. Moreover, 384
operators were investing in 5G networks in the form of tests, trials, pilots,
and planned and actual deployments. In China, 200,000 sites have been built
and 800,000 are expected to be completed by the end of this year, covering
more than 340 cities across
the country. 4G changed life, but 5G will change society. As the key enabling
technology for the fully connected, intelligent world, 5G’s attributes reach
far beyond ICT itself. 5G’s
advanced nature and the fact that its energy consumption per bit far surpasses
4G are indisputable. However, adding 5G to sites will
bring a series of challenges to power supply infrastructure. These include insufficient mains grid capacity, insufficient power capacity, insufficient battery backup, and the inability to provide high-power AAU remote power supply.
3 concepts in 3 layers
“We’ve distilled our expertise and successful industry practice in 5G network
evolution, materials science, and technologies in areas like power, power
electronics, thermodynamics, IoT, and AI into a concept for a target telecom
energy network that’s simple, smart, and green’,” says Peng. This covers
everything from components to the network and has,
he adds, culminated in “5G Power, our next-gen site power solution, and CO-
MIMO, a full-scenario equipment room solution.” Rectifier efficiency is the
sole focus in traditional power supply systems and, limited by structure and
capability, other parts of the power supply are ignored. Setting out from
components, sites, and the network, Huawei Digital Power can help build end-
to-end green energy networks that can also help operators achieve 5G
success.At the component layer Huawei’s industry-leading 98-percent efficient
rectifier, heat resistant materials, and phasechange cooling temperature
control help save 5,000 kWh of electricity
At the site layer
Operators can eliminate the need for diesel generators and add solar
panels in all sites, realizing at least 50 percent energy savings in
typical sites, based on the following measures:
- Reconstructing old and inefficient sites.
- Converting indoor sites to outdoor sites.
- Adopting AI-powered iSolar digitalized overlaid solar cells.
- Adopting super-fast charging.
- Implementing intelligent network management scheduling and intelligent collaboration.
At the network layer
Cloud-based intelligent network management allows intelligent network-wide
coordination between the mains supply, power supply systems, energy storage,
and loads. It can
also accurately identify inefficient sites. These functions support precision
energy efficiency management and energy consumption optimization at sites
across the whole network.
Intelligent upgrades have been a powerful part of Huawei Digital Power’s
arsenal in recent years. By adopting AI, big data, and IoT, its solutions
realize the real-time coordination and
global management of energy and services, enabling smart power output and
smart O&M for site power systems, in turn driving the full smartification of
the energy network. On the
power side, Huawei has developed functions
such as intelligent voltage boosting, intelligentpeak shaving, precision
backup, precise poweroff, and intelligent hybrid battery use. On the O&M
front, benefits are being delivered
through functions such as a digital dashboard for network-wide site power with
visualized energy consumption per bit, intelligent antitheft, and remote
maintenance. By reserving space for future capacity expansion and additional
hardware, carriers can achieve smooth expansion and save costs when evolving
to multi-band 5G. Huawei is enabling them to do this by making breakthroughs
in the power density limit, driving constant increases in power and energy
storage density. 5G Power enables 5G deployment in various scenarios without
needing to modify the mains, build equipment rooms, add cabinets, or replace
cables, thus helping customers rapidly deploy 5G and achieve optimal TCO.
5G Power: Site energy gets smart
At the Global ICT Energy Efficiency Summit in October 2018, Huawei unveiled the industry’s first complete 5G Power solution – the best energy solution for network evolution. According to Peng, “Traditional power solutions took piecemeal steps to treat the symptoms, not the disease”. In contrast, he says, Huawei’s 5G Power uses AI and other techniques to provide a unified power supply platform for all scenarios. It supports “1 site, 1 cabinet” and “1 site, 1 blade” site construction models, which help operators build and operate 5G networks faster, more economically, and more easily. The solution
will help realize a generational transformation in communications power akin
to the leap from “basic sites” to “smart sites”. In terms of energy
conservation and emissions reduction, Huawei’s 5G Power not only supports
higher power module efficiency, but it can also reduce secondary losses by
boosting voltage, increasing end-to-end energy efficiency by 3 percent. It can
also help increase site energy efficiency by 5 percent thanks to precise
temperature control and ondemand cooling. The solution also adopts a modular
design and supports connections to solar power supply modules. With industry-
leading maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technology, Huawei’s self-
developed efficient solar modules can output 30 percent more
electricity than traditional solar solutions, thus using sunlight more
efficiently. Huawei’s 5G Power can reduce reconstruction costs per site by
more than 12,500 yuan (US$1,831), conserve 4,130 kWh of electricity per site
per year, and cut carbon emissions by 1,125 kg per site per year. 5G Power
scooped the Global Industry Award for Sustainable Impact at the 2019 ITU
Telecom World Awards, in recognition of its outstanding contributions to
energy conservation and emissions reduction in mobile networks. As of 2019,
5G Power had been deployed by 84
operators worldwide.
Smart batteries
Smart lithium batteries play a crucial role in 5G Power. In a basic site, site
backup power was mainly provided by lead-acid batteries, which supplied simple
backup power. In smart
sites, smart lithium batteries have supplanted not only lead-acid batteries,
but also ordinary lithium batteries. Smart lithium batteries are smaller,
lighter, and have a longer service life.
And they can be coordinated with intelligent power supplies, as well as store
and recycle electricity, much like money in a bank, thus creating what Huawei
has dubbed a “power
bank”. In fact, a single smart lithium battery module can be as effective as
two ordinary lithium battery modules. For equipment room scenarios, Huawei’s
simplified CO-MIMO power solution boasts new architecture and compatibility
with all standards. It offers 55-percent lower volume, 70-percent less load,
30-percent higher capacity, and an E2E efficiency boost of between 80 and 92
percent. The solution can help customers retrofit and expand the capacity of
services at the original site without needing new leases, new equipment rooms,
or engineering work, thereby supporting simplified evolution towards 5G for CO
equipment rooms. CO-MIMO also supports connections to renewable energy,
ensuring power supply for converged IT/CT equipment and MEC-ready
capabilities. And its unique CO BoostLi power storage system supports a
maximum of 6000A ultra-high power and comes equipped with intelligent
automatic fire-extinguishing technology for lithium batteries, an industry
first that maximizes system safety. In the future, it will be necessary to
further open the capabilities of site energy systems, so they can evolve from
traditional communications towards site-sharing and energy-sharing, helping to
maximize site
energy efficiency. Huawei’s industry-first super site power supply MEC
solution maximizes site resource utilization to help sites evolve from
communications towards multi-functional “social stations”, maximizing their
value and generating greater value for society. The solution leverages
intelligent integrated power supply and unified power supply architecture
that’s compatible with all input and output standards. It also offers flexible
modularized expansion, ultra-high power supply and backup capacity, ultra-high
heat treatment capacity, and class A environmental
adaptability. These support the co-deployment of ICT devices and full-scenario
applications. Thanks to the large power supply and backup capacity, the MEC
solution enables site power sharing – providing backup power and electric
vehicle charging/power exchange for businesses and residents. Flexible
multistandard output capabilities mean sites can be leased for diverse
functions such as security monitoring, disaster detection, and outdoor
advertising. “Huawei believes in openness and cooperation and actively
collaborates with third-parties and industry partners,” states Peng. “Huawei
was the main technical contributor to the ITU international standard for 5G
power, released at the start of 2020, and was the first vendor to release a 5G
Power solution that meets the standard.” Huawei Telecom Energy, he concludes,
has led the global development of site energy technology thanks to its
tireless innovation – and it’s only through continuous technological
innovation that we can hope to make energy greener and society better.
The race to Open RAN is a marathon,
not a sprint
5G will place enormous demands on network infrastructure. To meet the
resulting challenges, major changes will be required of RAN
architecture.
he architecture of the Radio Access Network (RAN) has evolved significantly
since the early 1990s, with the introduction of distributed and centralized
RAN architectures now
deployed in many parts of the world. However, 5G will place enormous demands
on network infrastructure due to the massive volumes of data carried over
numerous spectrum bands to multitudes of users with increasingly high user
experience requirements. To meet these challenges, RAN architecture will
undergo its most dramatic changes yet – virtualization and cloudification.
4G/5G RAN architectures
Traditional RAN components in cellular networks are designed for optimal performance using proprietary technology. In a typical distributed 3G network, a basestation consists of a remote Radio Unit (RU) at the top of a tower connected to a Baseband Unit (BBU) located at the bottom of the tower with a fiber optic cable using the Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) standard. To enable virtualization of the RAN, a different architecture is used in 4G/5G networks in which the BBUs are split into two parts: a Central Unit (CU) located on a centralized server and a Distributed Unit (DU) located either directly at the tower or at another location several kilometers away. Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have numerous options regarding where they locate DUs and CUs. In practice, the exact placement will depend on multiple variables such as business requirements, transport capabilities (for example, is fiber available?) and RAN coordination features. Locating the DUs closer to the edge of the network reduces latency; conversely, centralizing the DUs can optimize the network by minimizing interference within a group of sites, but at the cost of higher latency.
The concept of Open RAN
The RAN market today is dominated by a small number of incumbent vendors, of
which Huawei is one. In a bid to generate more competition and increase vendor
diversity, some MNOs support the concept of Open RAN in which proprietary RAN
technologies are replaced by open standard alternatives. This involves two key
initiatives:
Open interfaces: replace existing RAN interfaces with open standard
alternatives. Replacing the CPRI fronthaul interface with an open interface,
for example, would enable MNOs to mix and match RRUs and BBUs from different
vendors. • Software and hardware disaggregation: separate RAN software from
associated ASIC-based hardware platforms. This would enable MNOs to select BBU
software from alternative software vendors, which could be run on Commercial
Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware based on standard x86-based processors.
Open RAN standards
A number of companies are developing an ecosystem of software and hardware
based on the Open RAN approach and collaborating in a number of standards
organizations. Two Open RAN organizations actively promote Open RAN: O-RAN
Alliance and the OpenRAN project, which is part of the Telecoms Infra Project.
The members of each include MNOs and software and hardware vendors.
• O-RAN Alliance (ORAN). Founded in February 2018, ORAN is developing a
complete reference architecture for building a virtualized RAN with open
hardware. Standardized interfaces would enable an open and interoperable
supply chain ecosystem. Various technical work groups cover several topics,
including overall architecture, open midhaul and fronthaul interfaces, RAN
intelligent controller and AI interface, and white-box hardware and software
architecture. In February 2019, ORAN published the first open standard
specification for the fronthaul
interface between the RUs and BBUs. Other standardized open interfaces include
the X2 interface, which interconnects BBUs.
• OpenRAN: A project group within the Telecoms Infra Project (TIP),
OpenRAN has the broad mission of developing open source-based software
services across all telecoms and IT infrastructure. Its main objective is to
develop fully programmable RAN solutions based on disaggregated software
running on General Purpose Processors (GPP) using COTS hardware
OpenRAN is also defining an open white box device using standard server and
accelerator components that meet the needs of operators for the speeds and
densities required for 5G
NR. The TIP projects use O-RAN interfaces and specifications.
Market transition
A few years ago, MNOs were excited at the prospect of drastically reducing the cost of mobile infrastructure by replacing proprietary hardware with Open RAN interfaces that would enable the mixing and matching of RUs and BBUs from different vendors. However, Open RAN proved to be much more difficult to implement than initially envisaged, and several planned deployments were postponed. Today, the tide is beginning to turn. At present, however, Open RAN deployments consist of a handful of mostly greenfield commercial deployments and numerous legacy network trial deployments. With the majority of MNOs having already selected their initial 5G infrastructure partners, it’s unlikely that any of the new Open RAN
vendors will capture a significant share of any major MNO’s initial 5G build.
In the short term, Counterpoint Research believes that the most likely
opportunities for Open RAN are in new network builds or in emerging markets
where 4G and 5G is still in the planning stages. Several MNOs are also looking
to deploy Open RAN in rural markets. Other opportunities include small cell
deployments, particularly in-building deployments and 4G/5G private networks.
However, other opportunities may open as 5G matures and MNOs start thinking
about upgrading and enhancing their networks. Companies that want to build
their own enterprise networks are also potential customers. Many large-scale
industrial conglomerates are interested in building
private cellular networks, particularly with the increasing availability of
unlicensed spectrum bands (such as the CBRS band in the US) and the imminent
availability of 5G NR-U technologies specifically designed for unlicensed
bands. Counterpoint Research believes that the private network market is
probably one of the best short-term market opportunities for Open RAN vendors
once 5G NR becomes available.
Key challenges
Although a small number of major MNOs are believed to be starting limited commercial deployment, Counterpoint Research believes that numerous challenges and issues still need to be resolved before the widespread adoption of Open RAN commences: Open interfaces: These are essential to
enable multi-vendor networks and a more competitive and vibrant supplier ecosystem, and can be realized on both traditional proprietary and new Open RAN platforms. The main fronthaul interface standards are the 3GPP-developed eCPRI and O-RAN 7.2x open standard from the O-RAN Alliance, both of which are in the initial phases of deployment. However, open versions of other RAN interface standards are required. These are still under development by the various Open RAN industry groups.
Performance: The performance and cost differential between custom-built
and generic open COTS hardware will be a critical deciding factor for MNOs. At
present, proprietary ASIC processors are more power-efficient and less
expensive than x86-based CPUs. The performance gap is significant for
demanding workloads, for example, networks that operate
5G MIMO mmWave antennas. In addition, there are form factor requirements, as
the processors may need to be fitted into standard industry enclosures
designed to be attachedto roof top fixtures or onto street light poles. With
the possible exception of rural networks that focus on coverage rather than
serving densely populated areas, Open RAN deployments are not being run on
standard x86 COTS processors. For example, in the case of Rakuten, its partner
Intel had to implement considerable hardware acceleration via FPGAs to run the
baseband software stack supplied by another vendor. The conclusion is that
running heavily virtualized baseband stacks based on standard x86 CPUs isn’t
feasible without additional bespoke accelerator platforms
based on FPGAs, GPUs, or possibly new chip architectures, such as those being
developed for AI applications, all of which have cost and power implications.
Scalability and coverage densification: Scaling to meet capacity and
coverage demands, particularly in large macro networks or large indoor venues,
such as stadiums, is unproven today. Coverage densification in cities,
particularly at millimeter wave frequencies, is also a major challenge for
Open RAN. However, several vendors have recently initiated trials with major
MNOs
to test and improve performance in such environments.
Increased operational complexity: Perhaps the biggest concern of MNOs is
the increased complexity of an Open RAN network. Virtualization has a steep
learning curve and
MNOs have struggled with the sheer number of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs)
that must be integrated into existing network architectures and linked to
their operations systems.In a conventional network, MNOs typically have access
to a single vendor that’s available to resolve issues and problems. However,
with an Open RAN network, where software and
hardware are sourced from many vendors, it might not be immediately clear
which product is malfunctioning and hence which supplier should be
contacted.Total Cost of Operation (TCO): Although some MNOs claim significant
cost savings with greenfield deployments of Open RAN, MNOs in general remain
unconvinced about the TCO
No white box RU market: At present, Counterpoint believes that RU units supporting the O-RAN alliance 7.2 specifications are only available from two vendors, although several other vendors are believed to be engaged in developing such products. In late February 2020, TIP announced the launch of the Evenstar RU initiative, which will develop reference designs aligned with 3GPP and O-RAN Alliance specifications. First RU products are believed to be Band 3 (1,800 MHz) units, which are expected to become commercially available towards the end of 2020 with an ultimate price target of US$1,000. Evenstar RUs will support the O-RAN Alliance 7.2 split architecture.
Interoperability: The ability to mix software and hardware from different vendors is often touted as one of the major benefits of virtualization. However, it’s also one of the greatest hurdles. At present, there are no welldefined standards or testing methodologies to guarantee the interoperability and performance of software and hardware products from different vendors. At this stage, vendors are just testing their own products to see if they comply with O-RAN standards rather than testing interoperability with each other’s products. However, the recent opening of two test and integration centers in Berlin and Beijing is a positive step that should ultimately resolve this issue.
Viewpoint
Although there’s considerable momentum behind Open RAN at present, the
transition to fully interoperable, multi-vendor, cloud native RANs is a
marathon, not a sprint. Counterpoint believes that there is still some
significant research, lab testing, and trials, plus a few major milestones to
be overcome before wide scale Open RAN adoption happens. While MNOs are
clearly looking for vendor diversity, Open RAN technology and standards need
to mature before the technology can be deployed in commercial networks at
scale as MNOs cannot risk exposing their customers to unreliable
infrastructure. Network performance is still a major challenge, as general-
purpose x86-based hardware struggles to achieve performance and OPEX costs on
a par with dedicated ASICbased hardware. Open fronthaul interfaces will be
critical to allow interoperability between RUs and BBUs and, although the
first Open RAN interface standard was
released by the O-RAN Alliance in February 2019, an ecosystem of truly
interoperable Open RAN white box hardware will bebrequired before Open RAN can
be deployed en masse. Other important issues to be resolved include
improvements in scaling and coverage densification, which will be required to
meet capacity and coverage demands, particularly in large macro networks and
in large indoor venues such as stadiums. Nevertheless, the fact that major
MNOs, such as Telefonica and Vodafone, are prepared to give smaller Open RAN
vendors even a small share of their business should be a signal to incumbent
infrastructure vendors that MNOs re serious about Open RAN. However, it won’t
be easy to dislodge the incumbents that
Counterpoint believes are well positioned to control the adoption of Open RAN.
Major MNOs have already started selecting their initial 5G radio partners.
There are millions of 5G NR-ready radios in the field that can be upgraded
with minimal hardware, or in some cases remotely. This complicates the
business case for new Open RAN entrants. As a result, it may take three to
five years for these players to gain a sizeable market share, and in that
time, not all will survive. Furthermore, increasing network complexity,
coupled with the application of new technologies such as AI-based automation,
may favour incumbents as they have more technical resources to deal with the
everincreasing complexity of mobile cellular infrastructure. As a result,
Counterpoint believes that mainstream adoption by major MNOs will only happen
when it’s clear that the operational benefits and flexibility offered by Open
RAN network solutions outweigh and compensate for the hardware, power, and
system integration costs, while attaining the same high level of network
performance and reliability. Although some limited commercial rollouts can be
expected during 2020, Counterpoint Research therefore believes that large
scale Open RAN deployments are probably at least 18 to 36 months away.
iCooling@AI: Smart cooling for data centers
As data centers grow in size and number, the energy they consume is
becoming more problematic. Each data center faces the challenge of increasing
energy efficiency to lower
power usage effectiveness (PUE). Huawei’s iCooling@AI solution can
achieve exactly that.By Fei Zhenfu, Director of Data Center Infrastructure
Product Dept, Huawei
Song Xiaoxin, Senior Engineer of Data Center Infrastructure Product Dept,
Huawei
UE is a KPI that measures the energy efficiency of data centers. Cooling – a
key component of a data center – is closely related to equipment heat
dissipation, equipment configuration, facility environment, and external
climate conditions. Thus hardwarebased energy savings or optimizations based
on human expertise alone cannot reduce
power consumption any further. Based on its extensive experience in data
center construction, Huawei launched the iCooling@ AI solution powered by big
data and AI. The
solution reduces the energy consumption of data centers, enables smart cooling
of large data centers, and cuts PUE.
AI in chilled water cooling systems
The chilled water cooling system of a data center saves energy in two ways:
design and O&M. Energy-saving through design comes from designing the right
cooling systems and selecting
the right equipment, which focuses on using hardware to save energy. However,
energyefficient hardware does not necessarily result in the most energy
savings because energy efficiency is closely related to the O&M of a data
center. Traditional O&M depends on an experienced O&M team. Based on their
experience, the team determines how to adjust the parameters of a
cooling system for different seasons, ambient temperatures, and load rates to
maximize the energy efficiency of the cooling system. However, relying on
experience that varies between team
members doesn’t always result in accuracy. For a complex chilled water cooling
system, a new control algorithm is needed to achieve overall optimal
performance. That’s where
big data and AI come in. AI can be used to determine the relationships between
the PUE and the data of different features and then predict a PUE value. With
the PUE value, the data center can make optimizations as expected based on the
current climate and load conditions to achieve the energy-saving target.
Using key technologies for smart cooling
Powered by AI and big data technologies, Huawei’s iCooling@AI solution enables
smart cooling systems for data centers. The key technologies used in this
solution include:
Big data collection: Given the complexity of data center cooling systems,
information about the power supply system, cooling system, and environment
parameters must be collected.
Data governance and feature engineering: First, a mathematical tool is
used to perform data governance on the raw data collected, providing high-
quality data for subsequent model training. Second, feature engineering is
performed on large amounts of raw data to identify the key parameters that
affect PUE. Selecting too many or too few parameters will
affect the accuracy of the final model. Too many parameters will lead to
overfitting. The trained model will have a better fit from the trained data
than from the tested data, but it has poor
generalizability. If too few parameters are found, underfitting occurs. The
trained model performs poorly with both the trained dataset and the
Creating a PUE model using a neural network: Neural networks are a set of
machine learning algorithms that can simulate the cognitive behavior of
interactions between neurons. Deep neural networks can play a role in
increasing the cooling efficiency of data centers. The machine learning
algorithms of these networks can find the relationships between parameters of
different pieces of equipment and systems. A mathematical model or the PUE
model of the data center is created based on large amounts of data from
sensors.
Inference and decision-making using genetic algorithms: Based on the input PUE
model and the operating data collected in real time, the algorithms find the
best policy in four steps: parameter traversal and combination, service rule
assurance, calculating the energy consumption of the cooling system, and
selecting the optimal policy.
Building green AI-powered data centers with both software and hardware
The use of big data and AI, as well as the combination of software and hardware, has allowed Huawei to set a new benchmark for green data centers. Software includes the teamwork control system and the data center infrastructure management (DCIM) system. The teamwork control system of a data center mostly uses the programmable logic controller (PLC) or direct digital control (DDC) and has active and standby servers. The system has a regular control mode and an energy-saving control mode.
Regular control mode: The teamwork control system automatically executes
all control logic, including adding or removing equipment, adjusting the
rotational speed, switching
the cooling mode, bypassing, and charging/ discharging chilled water. The DCIM
system monitors status information.
Energy-saving control mode: The teamwork control system is subject to the
control of energy-saving algorithms. It executes the instructions issued by
the algorithms, including
adjusting the amount of operating equipment; adjusting target values of
control loops like rotational speed, power, temperature, and pressure
difference; and switching cooling
mode. When no control instructions are issued, the teamwork control system
controls the operations.
As the centralized management system of a data center, the DCIM system manages
all the links within the cooling system. The energysaving optimization
instructions are generated
by the AI algorithm and then sent to the teamwork control system, which then
conducts final execution. Hardware includes different sensors such as smart
meters, pressure/differential pressure sensors, water temperature sensors,
flow sensors, and outdoor dry/wet bulb thermometers. To ensure the best
optimization, variablefrequency components should be used
for chillers, water pumps, indoor units of air conditioners, and cooling
towers. The entire cooling system can be automatically controlled.
Data is collected every five minutes to maximize quality. The number of
collection points depends on the size of the data center. The first time data
is collected and at least three
months of operating data need to be recorded. After that, data is uploaded
once daily. Data can be uploaded in two ways: The refrigeration station data
is uploaded to the DCIM system
through the Building Management System (BMS); or the IT load data is uploaded
to the DCIM system through the cabinet information collection system.
Efficient data governance includes identifying and deleting abnormal data
based on Gaussian distribution; unifying the timelines of all parameters;
normalizing geographical locations; deleting data irrelevant to PUE (such as
alarms and maintenance information); and supplementing missing data based on
the data center O&M experience and the operating parameters of equipment like
chillers. To complete subsequent model training, mathematical tools such as
the chi-square test can identify key parameters that affect PUE. Common
parameters of a data center include
five types of control parameters (for example, the amount of equipment,
temperature of water supplied by chillers, temperature difference between
supplied and returned chilled
water, approach of the cooling tower, and temperature difference between
supplied and returned cooling water); 14 types of process parameters (such as
water flow, pressure difference, and
equipment power consumption); and two types of environment parameters (outdoor
temperature/humidity and IT load rate). The biggest challenge with datacenter
O&M is determining which parameters in the system to change and finding the
perfect combination after one parameter has been adjusted. There is no formula
or algorithm to reference in current O&M practices.
To address this issue, copious amounts of historical data are used to train an
AI neural network. AI uses machine learning algorithms to analyze the
relationships between the PUE and the data generated by data center
components. These discover the impact of different pieces of equipment and
system parameters on the overall system. Dynamic model training, inference,
and decision-making are the key to this process. A neural network has an input
layer, an output layer, and multiple hidden layers. An input eigenvector
reaches an output layer after it is transformed at hidden layers, and
classification results are generated at the output layer. AI-powered PUE
optimization uses deep neural networks, which includes five hidden layers.
All data that has undergone governance and feature engineering are randomly
divided into three parts. Ten percent of the data is used for preliminary
training, 80 percent for in-depth training, and 10 percent for final
verification. A data center’s PUE model is generated after training and
verification. Finally, the prediction model (PUE model) is sent to the
inference platform. With the powerful inference and computing capabilities of
the inference platform, possible cooling policies are traversed and simulated
by using genetic algorithms. Within one minute, the AI energy-saving algorithm
can identify the optimal parameter combination under the current outdoor
conditions and IT load from 1.4 million combinations, perform multi-layer
filtering based on the O&M requirements of the data center, work out an
optimal set of instructions, issue them, and provide feedback on what
happened. iCooling@AI technology has been commercially deployed to provide
smart cooling for multiple large data centers. Field tests show that the PUE
of these data centers can be reduced by 8 to 15 percent. As the iCooling@AI
solution and AI
technologies are widely used in data center operations and management,
concepts such as intelligent O&M and\ unattended operations are no longer just
buzzwords – they are becoming
reality.
Building greener homes with eAI optical modems
While we all enjoy the convenience of technology, most people are likely
to agree that this enjoyment shouldn’t come at the expense of the environment.
Here’s how we can enjoy the best
of both worlds. By Zhang Xiaolin, Deng Feifei, Senior Marketing Manager,
Transmission & Access Domain, Huawei
ost home devices are Wi-Fienabled, with Wi-Fi networks now a key part of home
infrastructure for every family. And that’s especially true this year with
millions of households using online education and online office applications.
VR education will soon enter the home – and with good reason: studies show
that students’ attention and beta brain waves last six times longer in a VR
environment than in a traditional learning environment. Indeed VR may become
standard for language classes in the next five years, with VR- and AI-powered
digital virtual avatars likely to be the future direction of language
teaching. Gaming has also evolved – from the first standalone consoles to
mobile games, web games, client-hosted games, to today’s massively popular
online games. Gaming is imposing higher and higher requirements on the
Internet, as online games’ user numbers and scale rapidly expand. Having
amassed 350 million players as of May 2020, Fortnite, for example, places very
stringent latency requirements on the network, because it needs high data read
and write speeds given the huge numbers of players online simultaneously. The
key node that connects all home services to the network is the optical modem,
aka the optical network terminal (ONT). And while we all enjoy the convenience
of technology, most people are likely to agree that this enjoyment shouldn’t
come at the expense of the environment. We’re paying more attention to product
size, function, energy-saving capabilities, safety, reliability, and whether
devices and their materials are toxic-free and safe. This has in turn
increased the requirements on the design of these products. The electronic
components, source materials, and power consumption must pass international
environmental protection certifications like WEEE and RoHS to guarantee the
quality of the entire
product. Huawei started researching and designing its optical modem back in
2007 and has spent the 13 years since developing and innovating the
technology. We’ve shipped more than 250
million units to over 150 countries and regions around the world and expanded
the range of technologies supported by the ONT from simple Layer 2 forwarding
functions, to Layer
3 forwarding functions, to 4K and VR services. Today, the product supports the
latest embedded AI (eAI) intelligent service, which is capable of accelerating
multiple services. We have continuously improved the product’s integration
density within its effective area while limiting and reducing its power
consumption. This has been driven by our deep integration of green concepts
and goals for many years, and our commitment to exploring solutions for
reducing energy consumption. We’re making constant advancements in power
supply circuits, adapters, function modules, components, and other technology
areas. It also includes product planning, structure design, production, and
through the introduction of intelligent algorithms. This is our commitment to
environmental protection within our product responsibility.
OptiXstar V Series: Three levels of energy-saving
band to Wi-Fi 6 XGPON + 2×2 dual-band, the overall improvement in the
performance of home ONTs has increased power consumption. Customers who don’t
understand the characteristics of Wi-Fi 6 tend to believe that because its
performance is better, it must emit more radiation. Therefore they want ONTs
to enter deep hibernation when not in use, such as
overnight, so that radiation is minimized before it connects immediately when
they need to use it. This imposes high requirements on any energy-saving
solution for the product. Such a
solution needs to be intelligent.
Enter the Huawei eAI ONT
In 2019, Huawei launched the next-gen OptiXstar series of eAI ONTs. These products boast three levels of energy-saving measures. Maximum energy-saving is achieved across the whole device, from the internal software to the hardware to the exterior, at the algorithm, module, and structural level. Application Performance Management (APM) intelligentscheduling achieves smart scenario-based energy-savings with peak and off-peak sleep modes. The superior product design realizes green communications energy conservation and emissions reduction, ensuring user service experience while delivering a high-quality lifestyle. Data shows that Huawei’s latest OptiXstar series of gigabit ONTs can save each customer 38 kWh of electricity per year, thanks to smart hibernation technology that takes its energy consumption levels down to 30 percent less than similar products and 20 percent lower than the level set out by the European Union’s Code of Conduct on Energy Consumption Broadband Equipment Version 7. An ONT running 24 hours a day would consume 0.47688 kWh of electricity a day, or 174 kWh of electricity a year. The smart hibernation technology of the OptiXstar gigabit ONT reduces this to 0.37 kWh or 135.05 kWh a year, saving households 38.5 kWh per year. Converted to carbon emissions, this would equate to 24 kg of CO2, which is equivalent to the carbon dioxide absorbed by a single mature tree. OptiXstar ONTs’ energy-saving function helps families to metaphorically plant a tree a year and contribute to saving the natural environment.
eAI ONT for greener homes
Home broadband users are shifting expectations from a broadband experience to
an ultimate service experience. As the number of full-4K users and services
grow, online education, online office, cloud gaming, and cloud VR are entering
the “experience level” of development. Huawei’s OptiXstar V series of eAI ONTs
uses 100-percent hard forwarding, Wi-Fi dual acceleration, and eAI smart
identification capability of up to 1 million packets per second, improving the
entire home broadband service experience. In a typical home, Huawei’s eAI ONT
starts work
early in the morning as the first data packets are transmitted: At 9 am, the
kids start online classes in a quiet home environment, with the ONT serving as
a silent enabler. As it’s then offpeak
for broadband service traffic, the ONT stays in hibernation mode. By 6 pm,
everyone is back after a busy day. Dad is relaxing playing VR games with his
daughter, while Grandpa watches their virtual battle. Grandma is exercising to
a live stream of dancing on an IPTV broadcast. Mom is watching online videos
while helping the family’s
youngest child with his homework. This type of lively family scene signals the
peak period for broadband services, with the ONT operating at full speed in
the background.
At 10 pm, the whole family gets ready for bed, with just mom and dad left
watching videos and using social media. As broadband service traffic
gradually decreases, the ONT slowly adjusts back into hibernation mode after
working at full speed. By midnight, the whole family is asleep and broadband
service traffic has fallen to zero.
After transmitting the last data packet, the eAI ONT has also completed its
day’s work and enters deep sleep mode. Gigabit eAI ONTs enhance the family’s
realtime service experience of the home network as well as improving their
experiences and making life more convenient. Our goal is to facilitate greener
and more livable environments for people to live in. We’ve
invested extensive resources in our products’ technology, quality, and energy
conservation capabilities, continuing to reduce the power consumption of ONTs
in the home network
and maximize energy saving. With eAI ONT, Huawei hopes to provide a greener
home gateway to the Internet and make the home a greener place.
Building smart energy services with IoT
State Grid Hunan Integrated Energy Services (IES) and Huawei have
developed a Smart IES IoT solution based on cloud-edge-device IoT
architecture, aiming to tackle common problems in
developing integrated energy services.
By Xiang Yunkun, Business Operation Director, State Grid Hunan Integrated Energy Service Huang Wei, Senior Engineer, Data Communication Product Line, Huawei Zhang Haoxiang, Senior Marketing Manager, Wide Area Network, Huawei
hinese power grid companies have been transforming from traditional
electricity suppliers into integrated energy service providers in response to
the opportunities and
challenges brought about by the green energy revolution. State Grid Hunan
Integrated Energy Services (IES) and Huawei have developed a Smart IES IoT
solution based on cloud-edge-device IoT architecture, aiming to tackle common
problems in developing integrated energy services. These problems include a
lack of basic data and platforms, difficult O&M management, software and
hardware coupling, multiple access scenarios, and on-site deployment
difficulties.
The Smart IES IoT solution comprising apps, a breakthrough IoT gateway with
smart edge computing capabilities, and a multicontainer technology that
decouples software and hardware. It supports flexible service expansion, open
data-sharing, and smart cloud-edge collaboration, and provides an intelligent,
open, and efficient digital platform for integrated energy services, powered
by big data, AI components, and microservice architecture. Hunan’s Better Life
Group adopted the solution to transform over 100 of its stores to provide
refined energy management, real-time energy consumption management and
control, and intelligent air conditioning and lighting management. This has
helped Better Life save more than 20 percent in energy, boost corporate
management, and meet its green targets.
With fossil fuels becoming scarcer, pollution increasing, and climate change
becoming more severe, the efficient use of green energy and renewable energy
is essential for society to
progress. As a green, clean energy type that’s high-quality, efficient, and
renewable, electric power can meet most energy needs. China is committed to
creating a global energy Internet and promoting clean and green ways to meet
global electricity demand, pledging to accelerate reform for building an
energy sector that’s clean, low-carbon, safe, and efficient. Power grids,
transmission, and distribution will remain under central control, with free
market forces allowed to act on power generation and consumption. This will
establish a more complete, fully competitive, and effective energy market, and
facilitate efficient energy use and healthy development. Grid companies are
targeting new opportunities in the IES market. State Grid Hunan IES set up an
integrated energy service subsidiary to transform from a traditional
electricity supplier into an IES provider, and established new service types
to help satisfy diverse energy demands, boost user stickiness, and increase
income from value-added income.
Main obstacles to IES
Integrated energy services can meet diverse energy production and consumption needs, including energy planning and design, engineering construction and investment, multienergy operations and services, and investment and financing services
services for energy-intensive customers for whom air conditioning makes up a
large proportion of electricity consumption, such as commercialbuildings,
industrial enterprises, and large
campuses. On the supply side, it established an electricitybased multi-energy
power supply system that helps customers reduce energy costs, including
distributed power generation, tri-generation (combined heating, cooling, and
power), and energy storage. On the energy side, it developed an
electricitycentric device energy consumption system to help customers improve
energy efficiency. The solution provides energy-saving services, energy O&M,
and energy consumption monitoring and analysis. It promotes energy and
information integration and makes full use of technological, resource-, and
fundingbased approaches. When State Grid Hunan IES first launched integrated
energy services, the main issues it faced were the lack of detailed energy
consumption data and a basic digital platform for support service development.
Energy customers don’t usually have detailed data about energy use, like
energy by category
and item, consumption time and spatial distribution, overview and indicators,
or abnormal energy consumption warnings. That means there’s no data to analyze
energy use,
no way to manage energy, and no way to verify energy efficiency
transformation. When State Grid Hunan IES first launched, it lacked an
intelligent digital platform for the remote management of equipment and
software upgrades or energy data analysis to support mass data analysis and
flexible applications, which severely restricted how fast it could develop its
services.
Smart IES IoT
State Grid Hunan IES teamed up with Huawei to develop an innovative Smart IES
IoT solution based on the cloud-pipe-edge-device core architecture that would
allow them to build an
integrated energy service digital platform to support data perception, edge
processing, and smart applications; meet the IoT application requirements of
integrated energy services in
multiple scenarios; and support the development
-
Cloud: Visualized remote management
At the cloud layer, we adopt a cloud management architecture comprising an application layer and a platform layer. The application layer provides an open northbound interface for industry integrators to build app service packages and provide professional services for energy customers. This leverages industry vendors’ deep understanding of the industry and the technology of the application scenarios. The platform layer provides the IoT platform, a big data component, and an AI component. It supports remote visual management of the
full lifecycle of millions of end devices, real-time monitoring of whole- network status, rapid fault location, and the analysis and processing of mass energy consumption data. It incorporates the latest industry policy changes, identifies high-value data, and discovers energy customers’ -
Edge: Edge-cloud collaboration is more
efficient At the edge computing layer, we use edge computing technology to redefine the energy gateway device and give it a smart brain. The Smart IES IoT Gateway acts like a smartphone – functions can be customized or added ondemand and it can flexibly share data so it can link to different service ecosystems. This creates a multi-functional device and avoids redundant development of other hardware systems.Cloud-edge collaboration is also used to support hierarchical data analysis and processing for efficient applications. The
cloud and edge collaborate efficiently – with the cloud mainly handling big data analysis of energy consumption, human-computer interaction, and strategy generation, while the edge mostly deals with data preprocessing nd strategy decomposition and execution.
- Device: Full electric, water, gas, and heating/cooling data collection At the data collection device layer, we use lightweight data collection devices and lightweight converters that adopt industrialgrade high-speed power-line communication (HPLC). That means devices can network over power lines; have plug-and-play capability; and use ordinary power lines to collect energy consumption data economically, reliably, and efficiently. They also support multiple-wired/ wireless-interface conversion, which fully meets the service access needs of scenarios
like electricity, water, gas, heating/cooling and provides basic data for integrated energy services.
Refined energy management
In 2020, the energy consumption of one company, which has partnered with State
Grid unan IES, was projected to rise to over 500 million kWh. With energy
costs increasing every year, the company’s major priority was to improve
energy efficiency. By conserving energy and reducing energy consumption, it
could strengthen its competitiveness and ability to
survive. A lack of data for energy efficiency transformation and manual energy
management were general issues affecting the company’s stores. Energy
consumption data was collected
through manual meter reading, which is inefficient and error-prone. There were
also no detailed data measurements by item such as airconditioning, lighting,
and freezers. Moreover, energy consumption data from individual stores was
siloed, making it impossible to generate cross-comparison data.
State Grid Hunan IES and the company signed a strategic agreement for
integrated energy services, building a three-level energy management and
control platform that adopted
Huawei’s Smart IES IoT solution. The platform can collect data from over 50
different types of appliances, including air conditioners, elevators, sewage
pumps, large advertising screens, and
quantitative lighting. It also provides a package of sub-services. These
include energy efficiency transformation and operation monitoring for devices,
line status early warnings, abnormal operation warnings, load forecasts,
energy consumption rational analysis, use management for lighting and other
appliances, energy efficiency improvement recommendations, and the
construction of charging piles for parking lots. Thanks to these functions,
the platform has helped the company implement refined energy management,
implement “last-mile” energy management, and build an integrated energy
service management and control platform. Services like energysaving, power
O&M, and energy consumption monitoring and analysis, have helped the company
improve energy efficiency, reduce energy costs, eliminate potential energy
safety hazards, ensure green and safe operations, and improve corporate
management. State Grid Hunan IES will continue to work with Huawei to create
leading energy solutions based on 5G, AI, cloud and other innovative ICT
capabilities to better serve energy customers.
Huawei’s Smart Integrated Energy Service IoT solution digitally manages vast
amounts of energy assets, realizing efficient device-to-device, device-to-
people, and people-to-nature synergy,
helping partners establish integrated energy services for a better future.
Connecting with nature through green connectivity
China Telecom Sichuan has completed China’s first provincewide, all-
optical network, achieving 100-percent fiber coverage of
the province and creating a green bridge to the world. How did it achieve
this?
he human need for connection has existed since ancient times. In China’s west,
the Shu roads – the winding mountainous roads connecting present day Shaanxi
and Sichuan –
provide a spectacular example of how human ingenuity and spirit can overcome
what is ostensibly impossible. Immortalized by the iconic Tang poet Li Bai in
the “The Hard Road
to Shu”, building and traveling these roads was monumentally challenging.
Today, the kind of things we talk about for connecting people – network
technologies – present their own challenges that we must face. While the
nature of our desire for connections hasn’t changed in the 3,000 years since
the Shu roads were carved out of mountain rock,
the relationship between people and nature has. Today we have the ability to
impact natural ecosystems to an extent that was once impossible. And we do so
often to the detriment of the environment: global climate risks are rising,
extreme weather events are increasing, and biodiversity is declining. The
relationship between society and nature has been thrown off balance.
We believe that technology shouldn’t work against nature, but instead the two
should exist in healthy symbiosis. The ICT industry is the cornerstone of the
intelligent world and is playing a vital role in helping us achieve the UN’s
Sustainable Development Goals. To do so, the global ICT industry must
prioritize energy saving and emissions reduction in its technologies,
products, and solutions. China Telecom Sichuan and Huawei are doing exactly
that in the Shu roads, while fulfilling the connection needs of communities.
Optical fiber harmonizes connectivity and nature
Committed to low-carbon telecommunications and green technologies, China
Telecom Sichuan began replacing copper cables with fiber back in 2012 with the
aim of building an alloptical network. Optical fiber is the greenest
transmission media, using 60- to 75-percent less energy than copper. After
three years, China Telecom Sichuan completed China’s first
province-wide all-optical network, achieving 100 percent fiber coverage of the
province’s 21 cities and prefectures, 183 counties, 3,716 towns, and 22,700
villages. With this green network extending from the urban metropolises to
remote villages to snowy peaks, China Telecom Sichuan has established a bridge
connecting Sichuan to the world.
How did it do this?
Ensuring that technology and nature coexist in harmony is the philosophy
behind Huawei’s commitment to environmental protection, a commitment we
continue to fulfill. To help
China Telecom Sichuan and other operators around the globe better implement
low-carbon strategies, Huawei continues to promotegreen innovation in optical
networks, break through theoretical limits, and create greener optical network
products. Huawei’s OptiXtrans series of optical cross-connect (OXC) products
meet Huawei’s commitment to low-carbon
development. OXCs boast ultra-large capacity, liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS)
technology, 1.5 Pbps singlecabinet capacity, and 32-degree scheduling. It also
offers device integration at nine times higher density than traditional
ROADMs. For zero fiber connection, we’ve developed unique optical backplane
technology that allows us to print over 1,000 optical fibers on
an optical backplane the size of an A4 sheet of paper, realizing fully
automated fiber optic scheduling. At the digital optical layer, we use our
inhouse optical label technology, which supports
wavelength-level network status monitoring
and end-to-end visibility of more than 50 optical parameters, enabling full
automation of optical layer O&M. Thanks to technological innovation at
multiple layers, Huawei’s OXC products reduce equipment room footprint by 90
percent and realize power savings of 60 percent. Huawei OXC equipment has been
used in 12 core transmission nodes in China Telecom Sichuan’s
network, forming an “Optical Cube” network that saves 250,000 kWh of
electricity each year, the equivalent of planting 2,000 trees.
All-optical cities for a green future
Replacing copper with fiber was the prologue in China Telecom Sichuan’s
construction of an alloptical city, but introducing OXC was the start of a
whole new chapter. End-to-end (E2E) OXC, E2E OTN, and E2E intelligent
management comprise the all-optical city’s three-layer optical network
architecture. And 200G/400G highspeed optical transmission technology will
double connection rates in cities. These will form an all-optical city network
for the next decade. For sectors like government administration, finance, and
healthcare, China Telecom Sichuan
will supply high-quality private line services, enabling the digital
transformation of vertical industries. It will provide homes with
enterprisegrade, high-quality services, bringing VR and HD live streaming to
numerous households. And it will deliver high-quality 5G connections for
everyone and everything, accelerating the incubation of 5G applications. In
the future, when Sichuan completes the alloptical city project, it will save 8
million kWh of power – the equivalent of planting over 64,000 trees – per
year. The green Shu roads are just the beginning.
We will continue working to protect the environment. We are willing to work
with governments, enterprises, and other organizations to jointly ensure the
harmonious development of society and nature.
Smart PV: Breathing life into
a desert landscape
Huawei’s Smart PV (photovoltaic) solution harnesses digital technology to convert solar energy into electricity ultra-efficiently, promote the adoption of clean energy, and create a more sustainable world.
n October 2018, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) issued a special report on the mpact of global warming at 1.5°C above
pre-industrial levels. The report pointed out that, in contrast to a 2°C
increase, limiting global warming to 1.5°C wouldn’t just have clear benefits
for people and natural ecosystems, but also culminate in a sustainable
and fairer society. The report also emphasized that to limit global warming to
1.5°C, it will be necessary to achieve “rapid and far-reaching”
transformations in land, energy, industry, and cities.
By 2030, global net anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions must be
reduced by about 45 percent compared to 2010 levels, and “netzero” emissions
must be achieved by 2050. Increasing the use of clean energy, boosting the
utilization efficiency of resources and energy, and developing a greener
energy infrastructure are fundamental to responding to the
energy crisis and climate change
Turning crisis into opportunity
Huawei and Baofeng Group both take a proactive approach to tackling problems
such as energy shortages, pollution, and environmental destruction. With a
belief in the power of technology, the partners are responding to the global
call for clean and efficient energy systems with practical action.
Historically, Binhe New District on the eastern banks of the Yellow River in
Ningxia forms a harsh ecosystem with sweeping deserts. In 2014, Baofeng Group
began managing 107 square kilometers of desertified land by planting alfalfa
to improve the soil. The company then began planting goji berries, a business
that stretches back 1,000 years in Ningxia. Reviving goji farming has also
revived an otherwise dead expanse of desert. To make full use of the land
resources bestowed by nature, Huawei Smart PV built a solar power system over
the goji plantation, in effect draping a green blanket over the land. Goji
farming and smart PV technology have integrated in perfect harmony, creating a
rich layer of “edible rubies” topped by a pristine blue sea of solar cells. It
represents a new model of mixed land use involving two
complementary industries: agriculture and PV – a model that’s leading the
transformation of goji farming andnew energy in the Ningxia region.
Under the sun, a desert becomes an oasis
The planned 1-GWp solar power system will cover a total area of 20 square
kilometers. The 640 MW PV power plants that have already been constructed are
connected to the grid,
creating the world’s largest PV power plant with smart tracking. Huawei’s
smart solution adopts worldleading, horizontal single-axis automatic tracking
technology, allowing the solar
panels to track the sun like sunflowers, which in turn greatly improves power
generation efficiency compared to traditional PV power plants. Once the
project is completed, it will
save 557,600 tons of coal, reducing emissions of CO2 by 1.695 million tons,
sulfur dioxide (SO2) by 51,000 tons, nitrogen oxide (NOx) by 26,000 tons, and
dust by 462,000 tons each year. This will increase the annual environmental
capacity by about 2.23 million tons for the future growth of the energy sector
in Ningxia. Although the sun still beats down on this land, the once barren,
endless desert has slowly been transformed into an economic blue ocean,
representing the future and hope – all thanks to time and advances in
technology. Huawei and Baofeng are leading the transformation of goji farming
and new energy in Ningxia, accelerating the development of new technologies,
industries, businesses, and models. This new agriculture + PV, multiple land
use model isn’t just bringing new life to Ningxia, it’s forging a new
ecosystem where humans and nature coexist harmoniously, adding an extra shade
of green to the world.
Powering the world with light
Huawei’s Smart PV solution adopts technology to blanket the desert with
greenery and breathe new life into Ningxia. Huawei and Baofeng will continue
to use the new agriculture +
PV model to generate clean energy and improve the climate of desert regions.
Huawei looks forward to working with more partners globally and taking an
active role in reducing
reliance on fossil fuels and moving towards renewable energy to help put
humanity on the road to resourcesaving, environmentally friendly, and low-
carbon sustainable development.
We will continue to harness the power of technology to develop new practices
in response to global climate change and protect the Earth, our home.
Intelligent IP networks help
Tencent build green data centers
The UN reports that to avoid serious climate change impact, global warming must be limited to 1.5ºC – a huge challenge for the global economy that will require collaboration and advanced technologies.
limate change continues to grow more serious, with CO2 emissions causing a
greenhouse effect that’s threatening the planet. The UN reports that to avoid
serious climate change
impact, global warming must be limited to 1.5ºC – a huge challenge for the
global economy that will require the joint effort of all governments and
industries. The digital economy has propelled continuous growth of the ICT
enterprise economy. As world-leading ICT providers, Huawei and Tencent aim to
minimize the environmental impact of their ICT products through continuous
technological innovation.
Tencent implements green data center design
Today you can upload photos to cloud photo albums, order food and anything else online, play online games, and make mobile payments, all with a few swipes of your finger. And at any one moment, China’s 854 million netizens are using the services of countless data centers. These “smokeless steel mills” are creating economic value but are also highly energy-intensive. Data centers consume an astounding amount of electricity to power the massive amounts of data they handle. Such huge power consumption means data centers are classed as an energy-intensive industry. A total of 74,000 data centers of different types were operating in China by the end of 2019, accounting for 23 percent of the total number worldwide. Their annual electricity consumption exceeded 204.5 billion kWh, totaling 2.7 percent of total electricity consumption in China. With the advent of 5G, the energy consumption of data centers will continue to grow, and reducing energy use and emissions from data centers will become crucial, setting the stage for the emergence of green data centers.
Optimized data center power supply architecture
The Data Center White Paper issued by the China Academy of Information and
Communications Technology (CAICT) and the Open Data Center Committee (ODCC)
provides guidance for data center construction and outlines the need to
simplify the power supply architecture of data centers. Uninterruptible power
supplies (UPS) dominate traditional data centers and their industry chain is
mature. However, they offer low energy conversion efficiency. And with the
rapid growth of the data center industry and soaring construction costs and
energy consumption, high-voltage direct current (HVDC), which boasts high
reliability and low costs, is a new choice for data center power supply
systems. The HVDC + direct mains supply model can increase power supply
efficiency by 94 to 95 percent. And HVDC is already widely used by large
Internet firms, including Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu. Tencent’s third-
generation data center power
supply systems adopt a 240V HVDC + direct mains supply architecture. After
energy-saving sleep mode is turned on, power supply efficiency can reach 98
percent – over 2 percent more energy-efficient than dual-channel HVDC systems
and over 6 percent more energyefficient than traditional UPS. The system
overall offers at least 10-percent more energy savings,
not counting the additional energy-conserving benefits from the reduction in
energy used for power system cooling. On the infrastructure side, using HVDC
power supply offers higher reliability for data centers than UPS. The third-
gen system also delivers significant advantages over traditional data center
power supply architecture in terms of equipment investment costs and O&M.
Power supply modules on Huawei’s full range of router products support HVDC
power supply. They feature a magnetic field generated by a magnet and pointed
grills to reduce arc intensity and quickly guide electrical discharges. This
prevents arcs (sparks) so that one standby module can protect multiple active
modules, improving the power supply capacity of the equipment. The change from
N+N redundancy to N+1 redundancy reduces the hardware footprint by 45 percent
and improves power modules’ forward conversion efficiency end-to-end. In 2016,
Huawei router power modules offered 83 percent conversion efficiency. As of
2019, Huawei had boosted this to an industry-leading 88 percent through
measures such as changing the module components, topology, structure, and bus.
Lower power consumption of core equipment Server power consumption has
continued to rise with the rapid increases in router capacity. According to a
survey by Colocation America,
average power density per rack in data centers was about 6 kW in 2008. This
increased to 12 kW in 2016 and is projected to hit 16.5 kW by 2020. The power
consumption of IP equipment that makes up servers is constantly breaking per-
rack limits, and Huawei is continually smashing router capacity limits. We’re
also committed to reducing the power consumption of the hardware and
customers’ construction costs. Huawei’s metro router products achieve a per
Gbit energy consumption rate as low as 0.3 W, more than 50 percent lower than
the previous generation of products. The chipsets use SuperCooling heat
dissipation, which reduces chip temperature by over 10ºC and increases board
reliability by 20
percent. The technology harnesses vapor chamber (VC) liquid cooling and carbon
nano thermal pads. With this technology, Huawei is more than two years ahead
of the industry.
In a VC liquid-cooling system, a process of condensation quickly circulates in
the vacuum chamber, achieving efficient gas-liquid twophase heat dissipation,
offering 100 times the thermal conductivity of traditional radiators. Carbon
nano thermal conduction converts irregular heat dissipation to directional
heat dissipation, achieving six times the thermal conductivity of
traditional silicone paste thermal pads. Huawei is the first in the industry
to apply it. Huawei leverages 20 years of experience and continuous innovation
in heat dissipation in the design and production of highly complex heat sinks.
Powerful fan addresses singlepoint heat dissipation It’s not just running core
components that contribute to data centers’ high energy consumption and
electricity bills. While computers and mobile phones can get very hot with
extended use, data centers contain hundreds of billions of chips and can get
much, much hotter. Therefore a
large amount of electricity is used for cooling and heat dissipation to ensure
data center equipment can operate normally. According to data center energy
savings guidelines published in 2007 by the US-based Green Grid, only 35
percent of electricity is consumed by the actual ICT equipment – 36 percent is
used for cooling and 9 percent is used by air conditioning systems.
Rising power density is far exceeding the processing capacity of most
cabinets. When engineers designed data center cooling and air conditioning in
the past, they were working on the assumption that IT workloads were even and
dispersed. However, this is not the case in real operating environments,
especially n high-density cabinets. Companies have found that there is never
enough cooling capacity to solve issues with single-point heat dissipation
with regular fans, which leads to uneven temperatures and excess energy
consumption in high-density cabinets
compared to non-dense cabinets. Huawei has worked with a wellknown
international fan company to develop the industry’s first mixedflow fan for
servers. It offers up to three times higher heat dissipation capacity than
rival products, reducing the heat dissipation requirements of equipment rooms.
A unique magnetic permeability motor and mute dampener ring in the fan reduce
noise by 6 dB.
Working together for a green planet
Every country, enterprise, and even individual needs to fully integrate green thinking into concrete action. Huawei is doing so with its own products and solutions and is urging upstream and downstream industry players to take part in carbon-neutral initiatives. Like Huawei, Tencent has integrated all its platforms and product resources, applied integrated digital solutions in the areas of green operations, green community building, and green partnerships, and is working with the government, public, and non-profit organizations, to help protect our planet.
A green network for a green paradise
Optical networks are one of the first steps to building a smart hotel. Doing
so with minimal impact on the surrounding environment and embedding
intelligent technologies
are also parallel steps. Here’s how it’s done.
By Jia Lin, Chief Marketing Expert, Campus OptiX, Huawei Liang Yali, Marketing Communication Expert, Huawei 2020.10 ISSUE
engchong city in China’s Yunnan province is nestled in a valley rich in
volcanic rocks. The volcanoes and geothermal heat lend Tengchong a warm,
comfortable climate as
well as magical natural scenery that attracts artists and creators from all
over the world, including world-renowned architect Kengo Kuma. Inspired by the
natural scenery, he
designed The Lost Stone Villas & Spa, the largest hot spring resort complex in
Asia. The resort’s buildings are crafted from six different types of local
stone in a mosaic pattern. Seen – or rather not seen – from a distance, they
are gently camouflaged, unobtrusively dotting the mountains. The Lost Stone
aims to reflect harmony between people and nature, a theme reflected in the
resort’s guest rooms, catering, and leisure facilities. The 400 resort villas
are nestled in a mountain valley, scattered across 300,000 square meters. In
each, hot spring temperature control, room lighting, and room service are all
underpinned by intelligent tech. The Lost Stone blends perfectly with the
natural landscape of Yunfeng Mountain. So, how was the network that carries
the resort’s smart services integrated into the resort?
The optical network is the first step to building a smart hotel
At the design stage, Kuma left his creative mark everywhere, pre-designing a
pattern for each wall including the size, thickness, color, and even shape of
the stones. Walking among
the villas today, it’s impossible to find any repeated patterns. As technology
advances, new types of experience continue to emerge. Upgrading bearer
networks in reinforced concrete
buildings is done every day, but in iconic architectural works like The Lost
Stone, cabling solutions must be designed early on to minimize any damage to
the buildings.
With the buildings scattered over some distance, a long-distance network was
essential, with the developer considering optical fiber right away. Without
the 100-meter barrier of traditional copper LAN cabling, optical fiber wiring
could be flexibly extended around the complex. Fiber would also negate the
need for the many equipment rooms that are indispensable to copper LANs.
Network upgrades would only require replacing terminal equipment, enabling
continuous upgrades to bandwidth and experience.
O&M has never been so easy
Blending both technology and art, The Lost Stone resort harnesses technology
from checkin to check-out, providing a concierge-like service every step of
the way. Each villa is equipped with three telephones to call staff and an
outdoor priv ate hot spring pool. Water temperature can be adjusted either by
calling housekeeping or through a smart device. With sprinkled rose petals and
a blessing ceremony performed by staff, the experience is designed for guests
to feel a sense of serenity and unity with nature when sliding into their hot
spring pool – the fatigue
and stresses of city life melting away. The phones and smart control systems
for water temperature are connected by the same fiber network. Offering a
service life of up to 30
years, optical fiber will not oxidize or corrode in the humid environment of
the mountain. The Lost Stone fiber network acts like a neural network, sensing
the individual needs of guests in real time. As well as water temperature
control and phone and room service, the fiber network carries over 10 other
applications, including light adjustment, wired Internet access, wireless
entertainment, and security. Different services can be categorized and carried
according to priority, so that the hotel can respond to every guest’s needs.
Services based on fiber are long-lasting and stable, and can cement the
resort’s reputation for an outstandingly smooth and reliable network
experience, one that doesn’t take guests out of an otherwise relaxing
experience.
The Lost Stone adopted Huawei Campus OptiX solution to carry multiple services
over one fiber, with the simplified network architecture making O&M easier.
Each villa is connected
to the fiber network with optical terminals, which require zero configuration
to go online, deployed in every room. For a traditional LAN, a resort needs a
maintenance team of three to five people. Now, just one staff member can
manage the network, lowering O&M pressures and operating costs. In a
traditional multi-layered network layout, there are more network nodes to be
maintained. T he fiber network manages all services on the physical layer,
which significantly reduces the amount of engineering needed.
Green optical for green operations
material, optical fiber uses 60 to 75 per cent less energy than copper. Huawei
Campus OptiX solution for hotel campuses employs a passive optical LAN. As
fiber offers a stable signal and lower attenuation during transmission,
transmission efficiency is higher and net work architecture is also
simplified. At T he Lost Stone resort, using an all-optical network to carry
multiple services over one fiber reduces energy consumption by 30 percent and
reduces wiring footprint in rooms by 80 percent, compared to a traditional
Ethernet switch network of the same size. By adopting the Huawei Campus OptiX
solution, The Lost Stone has been able to extend connections over long
distances, minimizing the need for equipment rooms and saving energy costs on
air conditioners and other hardware. The system saves around 200,000 kWh of
electricity a year, equivalent to a 160-ton reduction in carbon emissions – or
planting an additional 15 acres of forest on Yunfeng Mountain. Tengchong’s
local stone is a gift from nature and the villas are artistic gems scattered
throughout the valley. Organically connecting technology, nature, and art, the
fiber network enables the hotel to better serve guests who come from far and
wide to see this enchanting place. “Huawei Campus OptiX solution provides
highquality network connections for hotel smart services and promotes green
operations,” said Chen Lei, Deputy General Manager of The Lost Stone Villas &
Spa. “It also represents the
future trend of network construction in the hotel industry. I believe that our
partnership with Huawei will boost our competitiveness and continue to provide
customers with excellent services.” The Lost Stone fiber network acts like a
neural network, sensing the individual needs of guests in real time. A green
network for a green paradise
The return of the big cats
A telecom network, camera traps, and AI: Technology is helping restore biodiversity in China’s northeast forest region and enable two critically endangered species, the Amur tiger and Amur leopard, survive, thrive, and repopulate.
the eve of the International Day for Biological Diversity, two sightings of
the extremely rare white roe deer were reported in the Northeast Tiger and
Leopard National Park.
At around the same time, evidence of tiger dispersal was found in the western
part of the park, heralding the rediscovery of the king of the jungle. This
was all made possible thanks to images captured by the pioneering monitoring
system installed in the park – a system that’s able to send data back to the
park’s headquarters in real time.
100 years of human progress and habitat reduction
The Amur Tiger is the largest of the big cats, an apex predator that lives in
the forests in the eastern edges of Russia and northeast China. As each female
Amur Tiger requires a 500 km2
area of forest to breed, they are indicative of the overall health of the
region’s ecosystem. However, habitat loss due to human activity over
the last century has seen their numbers dwindle to less than 600 in the wild.
In 2015, scientists from Beijing Normal University and Russia’s Land of the
Leopard National Park began monitoring these animals in the hope of ensuring
their survival. They found that at least 38 Amur tigers and 84 Amur leopards
still roamed the China-Russia border. Of these, 27 tigers and 42 leopards were
found on the China side in Hunchun, Jilin and its surrounding areas. However,
they were concentrated in a narrow corridor of just 4,000
km2. Penned in by the sea to the east and south and railway infrastructure and
marshlands to the north, the cats have to expand westwards into China’s
northeast forests if they are to survive.
Change, hope, and the return of the big cats
To ensure that the tigers and leopards can return to their historical
habitats, ecologists are hard at work restoring the forests of northeast
China. In August 2017, the Northeast Tiger
and Leopard National Park was officially inaugurated. Taking in parts of
Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces along the China-Russia border, the park
represents the only settlement area
with a breeding population of wild Amur tigers and Amur leopards in China.
Covering 14,600 km2, it forms a suitable environment for the cats to expand
their territories, in turn creating one of the highest pockets of biodiversity
in the northern hemisphere. It also represents a pioneering approach to
protecting biodiversity. And the process to doing so begins with collecting
information – where the animals are living, how they are hunting, behavioral
patterns, and more. Earlier research efforts had seen scientists and
conservationists install camera traps in the wild. But these cameras needed to
be maintained, their batteries replaced, and their memory cards switched out –
time- and labor-intensive processes that frequently resulted in data and
images that were several months old, making it difficult for conservationists
to make accurate decisions.
Technology lights the way
Several habitat preconditions are necessary for tigers and leopards to prosper
– a sufficiently large landscape connected by natural corridors for roaming
plus a complete food chain. To protect these cats, conservationists need to
understand and monitor population dynamics, habitats, the relationships
between different species, and the influence of human activity. In partnership
with the National Forestry and Grassland Administration Amur Tiger and Amur
Leopard Monitoring and Research Center, a Sky-Earth monitoring system was
established in the park, making it the world’s first real-time conservation
system of its type. Powered by a 700M wire-wireless LTE hybrid network built
by Huawei and Jishi Media, the system comprises three parts: field data
collection, real-time data transmission, and data analysis. Data from the
camera traps and HDmages in real-time include monitoring footage from road
checkpoints and fire prevention systems. Sensors in the ground, air, and water
provide detailed and accurate information about the ecosystem in the park. The
system also helps conservationists maintain a clear line of communication
through voice and video. In December 2019, the National Forestry and Grassland
Administration tested the system across 5,000 km2 of the park. Forty-two LTE
base stations and more than 3,000 monitoring terminals observed an area of the
China-Russia border spanning about 200 km, the location where the cats are
most active. The network
monitored their movements and habitats, as well as the overall state of the
ecosystem.
Humans and nature working towards harmony
Each year through camera footage, conservationists are discovering multiple
litters of cubs in the tiger and leopard populations of northeast China,
giving hope to those who work
to protect the future of these majestic animals. At the end of 2020, the
system will cover the whole park. With monitoring terminals, conservation has
become intelligent, efficient,
and accurate – three capabilities that are necessary to fully protect these
endangered animals and help restore their majesty in the wild. Huawei will
continue working with the National
Forestry and Grassland Administration Amur Tiger and Amur Leopard Monitoring
and Research Center to improve pattern recognition technology, big data
analytics, and 5G, so that
the technology can be rolled out in national parks across China. The return of
the king of the jungle is a sign that the forest is recovering – the health of
an ecosystem is often reflected by how well its apex predator is faring. In
this case, the signs are good. As we move forward, we hope more partners will
join us on this journey to create technology that allows nature and humanity
to exist in harmony.
Protecting the Palawan rainforest in the Philippines
Palawan loses about 5,500 hectares of rainforest every year – the equivalent of 7,700 football pitches. Now technology is helping the forest to fight back
By Xing Jingfan, Senior Marketing Manager, Huawei
nown for its beauty and promise of adventure for tourists across the globe, Palawan is a long, narrow island in the southwest Philippines that’s home to a rich array of flora, fauna, and marine life. Accounting for the bulk of the nation’s forest cover, the Palawan rainforest is considered to be the last ecological frontier in the archipelago nation. It not only plays a crucial role in maintaining the ecological balance of the entire region, it also ensures that local people have sufficient clean drinking water and is pivotal By Xing Jingfan, Senior Marketing Manager, Huawei to preventing landslides. As one of the world’s 35 biodiversity hotspots, the rainforest is home to various rare species, including the Philippine forest turtle, which the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists as a critically endangered species, and binturongs, a vulnerable species famed for a distinctive odor similar to hot buttered popcorn. With the continued encroachment of agricultural and residential land, prevalence of commercial and illegal logging, and frequent forest fires, Palawan loses about 5,500 hectares of rainforest every year – the equivalent of 7,700 football pitches. Moreover, forest rangers patrolling the rainforest face extreme danger due to illegal loggers carrying weapons – it’s estimated that from 2001 to 2019, the death of 18 rangers can be attributed to illegal loggers
A protective partnership
The good news for the Philippines is that a technology-driven protection
project for the rainforest has been initiated by the Department of Environment
and Natural Resources (DENR), PLDT’s wireless and mobile operator Smart
Communications, Rainforest Connection (RFCx), and Huawei. A new monitoring
system comprising mobile devices and AI powered by Huawei Cloud has been
deployed to prevent illegal logging and animal poaching in five protected
areas across Palawan: Cadlao Island, Maranlao and Pasadena in El Nido, and New
Guinlo
and Pancol in Taytay. Powered by solar panels, this Rainforest Guardian system
comprises old cell phones that monitor and record sounds of human activity,
like chainsaws and vehicles, and capture data on animal behavior patterns.
Identified by AI, forest sounds and data are uploaded to cloud on the Smart
Communications’ network and then sent to forest rangers via RFCx’s
mobile app. DENR forest rangers receive real-time alerts of sounds from
chainsaws, trucks, and other indicators areas that face a similar situation as
the Province of Palawan,” According to Alfredo S. Panilio, President and CEO
of Smart Communications and Chief Revenue Officer of PLDT, “At Smart, we are
championing eco-efficiency throughvarious programs that reduce the impact of
our operations, people, and products on the environment. On top of that, we
have always been at the forefront in using technology to support meaningful
initiatives that protect our forests to curb the devastating effects of
climate change.” Huawei believes that the Forest Guardian system can be
quickly and easily adapted to more countries and more scenarios. It expects
that in 2020, the system will more than double the amount of forest it covers
from 2,500 km2 to 6,000 km2. RFCx estimates that the amount of forest
protected by the system will boost CO2 absorption by 30 million tons, which is
the equivalent of taking 6 million cars off the road. RFCx and Huawei will
also continue to optimize the sound monitoring platform in 2020 by adding web
and mobile interfaces and developing an API for aggregating sound data from
various sources. This will help AI learning models capture and analyze audio
on a much greater scale, so the solution can better monitor the health of the
ecosystem and protect endangered species and their habitats.
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