How AI Is Changing the Mobile World

AI is fundamentally reshaping what mobile networks must deliver. AI adoption continues to rise everywhere, and its usage drives new network requirements and reshapes how mobile networks are designed and operated. AI is changing everything.

The pace of growth is ferocious. In October 2025, OpenAI reported that its API platform was processing 6 billion tokens each minute. In February 2026, weekly active users of ChatGPT had risen to 900 million — more than double the 400 million reported a year earlier. Total token consumption has surged 300-fold over the past two years, according to Yang Chaobin, CEO of Huawei’s ICT Business Group, speaking at MWC 2026. This jump was driven by applications including text-to-video generation, AI-powered commerce and multimodal data exchange.

In China’s 2026 Spring Festival, AI-powered services saw a tremendous surge in usage. ByteDance’s Doubao platform, powered by its Seedance 2.0 video generation model, recorded 1.9 billion AI interactions on the Chinese New Year’s Eve and generated over 50 million personalized avatars. Alibaba’s Qwen app completed nearly 200 million shopping orders during the holiday period, helping users to buy groceries and book travel with spoken commands.

5G-Advanced Improves on Early 5G

AI applications highlight network weaknesses. Multimodal AI interactions — voice, image and video inputs flowing upstream from devices to the cloud — demand uplink speeds that current 5G networks struggle to deliver in all locations and at all times.

AI-powered robotics compound the problem. Robots with constrained on-device computing and battery capacity will probably need to offload processing to AI hardware in the radio access network (RAN) or to the cloud. That network–robot coordination requires very low end-to-end latency with guaranteed reliability.

The first 6G standard specification should be frozen by early 2029, but the industry isn’t waiting. There’s urgent need to support changes in user data consumption patterns where AI creates bursty patterns and new AI services. For example, visual AI puts increased load on the uplink connection. This is a common application of smart glasses, robots, connected security cameras and autonomous vehicles.

5G-Advanced enables better management of RAN settings to improve the quality of experience. New technologies like RedCap, eRedCap and passive IoT extend connectivity to lower-power devices in a cost-effective way. Network slicing can assure the connectivity of all devices over the network, from end to end. Each slice ensures that every type of device or user has sufficient network performance for their needs.

5G-Advanced deployments are now appearing, building on recent deployments of 5G standalone, which is a necessary foundation. Chinese operators have rolled out 5G-Advanced networks in more than 300 cities. Seven operators launched commercial 5G-Advanced services by late 2025, with further trials in progress, particularly in Asia.

The Search for the Spectrum Capacity Needed to Support AI

To deliver high speeds and keep pace with rising mobile data traffic levels, operators require more spectrum. Globally, data traffic is rising by 15% to 20% per year. But spectrum policy remains uneven. Modern technologies like 5G are more efficient and can support more data usage, faster speeds or more users on a given amount of spectrum, compared with 2G or 3G.

The most important new spectrum is the upper 6 GHz band (6.425 to 7.125 GHz), which emerged from the World Radiocommunication Conference 2023 conference as a key frequency for future mobile communications. It was identified for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia and Latin America.

Connecting the World and Leaving No One Behind

While advanced markets push toward 5G-Advanced, many markets still use older mobile technologies or none at all. According to the GSMA’s The State of Mobile Internet Connectivity 2025 report, approximately 300 million people still lack any mobile network coverage. In parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, 2G remains the only available service.

There’s a risk that AI widens this gap. If access to AI services depends on advanced networks, populations that are stuck on obsolete networks will fall further behind. Multimodal interaction, for example through voice or pictures, is especially important in countries with low literacy rates or where devices are too basic to support on-device AI models.

Cost-effective solutions exist, but they require sustained commitment and scale to make an impact. An example is Huawei’s RuralStar platform, which is a solar-powered, pole-mounted base station designed for off-grid deployment. The company reports that it has been installed in more than 80 countries, connecting 170 million people in remote areas. This can support communities in countries such as Kenya, where mobile-connected “digital trucks” deliver technology education to rural students. In Bangladesh, mobile networks enable village-level financial services. In Argentina, remote communities access healthcare through mobile clinics.

5G-Advanced Is a Foundation for Innovation, AI and 6G

The mobile industry’s trajectory is no longer defined solely by coverage metrics; the quality of the connectivity is just as important. AI, live video streaming, robotics and other applications all need network connectivity. Now, the network not only connects people; a 5G-Advanced network connects the whole economy and is essential infrastructure for entertainment, communication, manufacturing and more.

This economic role means that collaboration is more important than ever. To create 6G the industry must collaborate globally throughout the whole ecosystem of companies, as we saw with 5G, 4G, 3G and 2G. This is the only way to ensure that every operator and every country enjoy the resulting economies of scale.

In a few years, 6G will arrive with enhanced satellite integration and an AI-native network design and will enable improved services such as sensing. The industry aims for 6G to be a simple upgrade from 5G-Advanced. This will ensure that 5G-Advanced investments now aren’t wasted; they’re a stepping stone to 6G and the new capabilities and revenue opportunities that 6G’s designers aim to bring to market.