BARCELONA, Spain – Huawei’s Li Peng outlined a vision for a new era of connectivity at Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona 2026, asserting that the convergence of 5G-Advanced (5G-A) and artificial intelligence (AI) will unlock a $10 trillion market and fundamentally reshape telecommunications business models.
Speaking at the industry event on March 3, 2026, Li, Huawei’s Senior Vice President and President of ICT Sales & Service, proposed that carriers move beyond simply providing data traffic and instead focus on delivering high-value services powered by AI. He characterized this shift as a move into an “agentic Internet” – a network connecting not just people, but billions of machines, services, and devices communicating independently.
“This year marks our entry into the agentic Internet era, establishing a framework where connectivity evolves dramatically to support the increasing interactions among agents,” Li stated, according to a Huawei press release. The company believes this transition will necessitate a redefinition of connectivity value and enable monetization of traffic, experience, and AI services.
Li highlighted the evolution from 4G to 5G, and the increasing adoption of 5G-A by carriers globally. He noted that as network capabilities expand, they are enabling a growing range of intelligent applications across various devices. He pointed to the success of over 300 operators worldwide who have already launched new packages to monetize traffic over the past seven years, increasing both revenue and user base.
The executive emphasized that monetizing the user experience will turn into increasingly critical for operator success as 5G networks mature. He cited examples of more than 30 leading operators leveraging 5G SA and 5G-A to launch experience-based packages, monetizing factors like speed and latency. Dynamic resource scheduling, he argued, will allow operators to move beyond “best effort” service towards deterministic experiences, strengthening brand reputation and encouraging investment in premium services.
Li detailed specific applications of AI across consumer, home, and enterprise sectors. For consumers, he envisioned integrating AI into traditional calling services, offering features like transcription, translation, and AI assistants – functionalities already gaining traction in markets like China and South Korea. He also highlighted the emergence of AI-powered smartphones as portals to the agentic internet, enhancing business-to-consumer (B2C) services, a key revenue source for most operators.
In the home, Li described how AI can enhance broadband services, enabling smart home functionalities. AI-powered acceleration assistants can guarantee deterministic speeds for demanding applications like gaming and live streaming, while network assistants can optimize Wi-Fi and troubleshoot network issues via voice commands. AI-driven lifestyle assistants, capable of automatically generating and sharing family photo albums across devices, represent another potential revenue stream.
For enterprises, Li focused on the transformative potential of combining 5G-A and AI in industrial settings. He cited the example of flexible manufacturing, where AI-enabled factories can respond to demand in seconds, schedule production in minutes, and deliver new products in hours.
Li urged operators to take three key steps to capitalize on these opportunities: evolve all services, devices, and frequency bands to 5G-A; integrate AI into business, operations, and management (BOM) domains to lay the foundation for diversified operation and maintenance (O&M) services; and embed intelligence into network infrastructure to support the evolution of future network architectures.
“Huawei is ready to collaborate closely with operators to maximize the potential of 5G-A and AI, and help them become AI service providers,” Li concluded. “Together, we can open a world of new opportunities and lay a solid foundation for future networks.”
Huawei is showcasing its latest products and solutions at MWC Barcelona 2026, at booth 1H50 in Hall 1 of Fira Gran Via through March 5, 2026.
