en.Wedoany.com Reported - ZTE unveiled the next-generation core network architecture AIR Core, designed for the agent era, at the 2026 Mobile World Congress Shanghai. Based on its accumulation of core network and AI technologies, this architecture drives communication networks from traditional "pipeline transport" to "intent-driven intelligent services." By integrating AI services, computing services, data services, and security services, it builds a cross-terminal, cross-ecosystem Agent Service Network (ASN) to meet the diverse needs of individuals, households, connected vehicles, and emerging intelligent agents.

Leveraging AIR Core, ZTE drives a comprehensive upgrade of core services: Voice services are reimagined through AI to enhance call value, Bytes services are restructured via AI for experience management, and Token services are redefined using AI for new service models. In the Voice domain, intelligent calling introduces AI-assisted new calling, enabling on-demand activation of dedicated assistants for native multimodal interaction upgrades and complex task closure; it also incorporates an AI noise reduction model that eliminates 99.9% of ambient noise. In the Bytes domain, experience management introduces NWDAF and AI-UPF for precise service identification, real-time experience measurement, and sub-second dynamic policy adjustments; for high-value scenarios like high-speed rail, NWDAF integrates spatiotemporal large models to provide real-time user profiling and dedicated network guarantees. In the Token domain, new service models target AI-driven traffic (multimodal, bursty real-time, symmetric uplink/downlink), with AI-UPF embedding large models for precise AI traffic identification and experience measurement, establishing AI-specific PDU sessions and differentiated QoS bearer guarantees. End-network collaboration drives computing resource integration and intelligent scheduling, supporting precise Token metering and enabling low-latency computing offloading and real-time response for edge AI services.

AIR Core breaks traditional network limitations, achieving a three-dimensional upgrade in service objects, space, and content. Service objects expand from "humans" to "all intelligent agents," introducing ASN to extend service targets from people and machines to AI entities such as home robots, digital humans, and virtual assistants, providing efficient connectivity, trusted identity management, and collaborative empowerment of computing, data, and intelligence. Service space extends from "terrestrial" to "integrated air-space-ground," deeply integrating Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) through dynamic topology-aware intelligent routing scheduling, enabling multi-orbit satellite and terrestrial network collaboration to deliver highly reliable, wide-coverage ubiquitous connectivity for remote, maritime, aviation, and emergency scenarios. Service content upgrades from "single traffic" to a "Traffic + Token + Data" trinity service, evolving AI-UPF into a converged computing-network-intelligence gateway for precise AI service identification and on-demand computing and network resource scheduling, while building a unified data plane (RTDS) to support data collection, storage, and analysis, providing support for user profiling, experience management, and data monetization.

This architecture marks a paradigm shift from Cloud Native to AI Native for core networks, laying the foundation for agent communication in 5G-A and 6G networks. Currently, ZTE's AIR Core has entered the pilot and initial commercial deployment phase, collaborating with global operators to accelerate the transformation from "connectivity providers" to "intelligent service enablers," jointly exploring new paths for network monetization in the agent era.

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