en.Wedoany.com Reported - Wang Fei, President of Huawei's Wireless IoT Domain, proposed at the Mobile IoT AI-IoT Innovation and Development Forum that the "Three-Dimensional Engine" strategy will drive the scale of mobile IoT from billions to tens of billions, laying the foundation for the goal of hundreds of billions of intelligent connections by 2030.
In a keynote speech titled "Accelerating 5G-A Full-Scenario IoT Industry for a New Journey of Hundreds of Billions of Intelligent Connections," Wang Fei stated that in the era of mobile AI, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are accelerating their integration, making mobile IoT a key bridge connecting the physical world with cloud-based large models. Huawei stated that it will leverage 5G-A full-stack IoT technology and the steady evolution of the three-dimensional engine to drive a leap in IoT scale and unlock new value for AI-IoT.
Mobile IoT is currently in a phase of rapid development, with the global scale of cellular IoT connections reaching 4.7 billion in 2025. The Chinese market has shown outstanding performance, with the scale of "connections exceeding people" continuing to expand, and total mobile IoT revenue reaching 50.7 billion yuan in 2025. Wang Fei pointed out that computing power without network support is like an information island, and isolated AI cannot achieve true intelligence. Massive amounts of terminal sensing data urgently require low-cost, wide-coverage cellular networks for transmission.
Aiming for the goal of hundreds of billions of IoT connections by 2030, Wang Fei broke it down into phased targets, proposing to use the three-dimensional engine to achieve a multiplicative leap in IoT scale. The first dimension focuses on eMBB and RedCap technologies, aiming to prosper the medium- and high-speed IoT ecosystem. The 5G lightweight (RedCap) industry has already experienced large-scale growth, with applications covering vertical industries and consumer businesses such as smart cockpits and smartwatches. Leveraging its nationwide continuous coverage of 5G networks, China has achieved tens of millions of RedCap connections, and the industry is entering the "hundreds of millions" scale.
The second dimension relies on eRedCap technology. By optimizing costs, reducing energy consumption, and enhancing uplink capabilities, the goal is to achieve a 5 to 10-fold increase in scale, building a "billion-level" new ecosystem for 5G IoT. Lightweight mobile AI terminals such as AI glasses, AI trendy cultural and creative products, and AI wearable cameras have rigid demands for low cost, low power consumption, and high uplink transmission capabilities. Field tests show that the uplink rate of 5G eRedCap is three times higher than that of 4G Cat.1. This technology is expected to be commercially deployed between the second half of 2026 and 2027.
The third dimension advances Ambient IoT (Passive IoT) technology innovation, enabling the digital and intelligent transformation of massive "dumb devices," leading to another 5 to 10-fold explosion and creating a "tens of billions" digital twin world. In 2026, local-area passive IoT based on the 3GPP R19 standard will see its first commercial deployment, and Huawei has already released the industry's first end-to-end commercial solution. The R20 standard for wide-area passive IoT is expected to be finalized in the first half of 2027, potentially opening up a market space exceeding tens of billions in areas such as supply chain logistics and asset management sensing.
Wang Fei stated that looking towards the 2030 vision of hundreds of billions of intelligent connections, Huawei will support operators in deepening network technology innovation, delivering differentiated IoT capabilities through a "single network," and collaborate with industry chain partners to build a 5G-A full-scenario intelligent IoT foundation. This will continuously enrich the end-to-end industry ecosystem, explore diverse intelligent application scenarios, and accelerate the digital and intelligent transformation of society.
