China Unicom Seeks to Democratize AI with Its Own Cloud Service

As telecom operators strive for fresh ways to profit on their networks, China Unicom’s cloud AI services for households and individuals recently caught my eye as a novel approach.

This is because it represents a new type of business model. Instead of taking the traditional approach based on selling gigabytes, it aims to sell experiences.

In partnership with Huawei, the telco has been developing cloud AI products for over a year. Its approach spans smartphones, tablets and a smart home robot named Tone Tone, each powered by its unified cloud AI operating system.

The products support features in a range of areas, such as entertainment, education and fitness. Crucially, by moving computing power to the cloud, China Unicom says it can reduce hardware investment by over 90%.

This addresses the large number of entry-level and mid-range devices that can’t currently support AI apps and services because of hardware limitations. For example, China Unicom’s cloud-based AI phone can use the operator’s cloud computing capability to enable a similar experience on an entry-level phone to a premium device in areas like gaming.

By doing this, the operator is helping to democratize AI through more-affordable hardware, bringing benefits to a wider segment of the population. For example, students can enrol on courses supported by augmented reality, available on a China Unicom-developed tablet, priced at less than $150. They can access cloud-based services, such as summaries of research topics, and AI-based homework correction tools.

Elderly people can benefit from real-time health monitoring, including online diagnosis, treatment and health warnings, enabled through a TV box and an AI assistant. Another service, AI Fitness, identifies incorrect posture during exercise to improve workouts through personalized coaching.

Among the leading features is one-stop authentication, which enables a consistent experience across different screen sizes, ranging from small — like the cloud AI mobile phone — to much larger — such as the home robot. Other benefits are smooth product upgrades, achieved by bypassing hardware limits, and an AI agent to support voice control on devices and apps.

The products benefit from lower latency thanks to deploying cloud resources in a two-level architecture. This comprises a central cloud resource pool and provincial cloud resource pools. When 5G-Advanced is used, latency can be further reduced by 30% compared with standard 5G. Reduced image processing, using a cloud-based algorithm, can also bring down latency.

Initial uptake has been impressive: 15 million users have registered for the cloud AI products, of which 4 million are monthly active users.

An important capability of these products is their customizable design. This can boost adoption by enabling expansion into other markets. Since September 2025, this includes Thailand, following a memorandum of understanding signed with the country to cooperate on technical deployment of cloud AI smartphones in the market.

For emerging markets like Thailand, Zambia and Nigeria, Huawei is helping adapt the product design to support local operators in accelerating migration to 4G networks.

I recently viewed a demonstration of the Tone Tone robot, which can be “woken” by saying “Hi, Tone Tone”. It responds to a range of voice commands to offer users intelligent, interactive experiences. The idea is to blend the physical and online worlds to support a more seamless and convenient lifestyle that addresses a range of home and personal needs. One example is to search for, download and play a movie based on a user’s specific interests.

A stand-out feature is its “super-aggregated” platform, which can access a variety of services, spanning video, audio and China Unicom’s apps.

It also supports unified account management, which offers a layer of convenience to customers, who can access applications through a single phone number.

A unique advantage is that Tone Tone can use both China Unicom’s 5G-Advanced mobile network and its “10 gigabit” broadband network, offering optimal throughput and low latency and encouraging development of a new wave of smart home services. It already has more than 140,000 active users.

Breaking down the barriers to AI adoption through more-affordable hardware and by developing new services aimed at households and individuals is a worthy strategy from China Unicom that can help recruit new customers, bolster average revenue per user and narrow the digital divide.

It was great to see it in action, and I look forward to closely monitoring its continued progress.