Huawei Stephen Shao: iMaster NCE "One Map and One Master" Accelerate Towards AN L4 for FBB

[Shenzhen, China, April 18, 2024] The 21st Huawei Global Analyst Summit was held in Shenzhen, China, from April 17 to 19, with the theme "Thrive with Intelligence". The summit aimed to share insights and strategic thinking on the intelligent world and discuss the development and transformation of industry intelligence. Stephen Shao, Vice President of Huawei's General Development Dept, shared the concept of "One Map and One Master" of iMaster NCE. He expressed Huawei's willingness to collaborate with more operators to develop innovative solutions for Autonomous Network (AN) Level 4 and accelerate toward Highly Autonomous Networks for fixed broadband (FBB).

As digital transformation continues to accelerate, operators in the FBB field face numerous challenges to evolve toward AN L4. These challenges include low levels of automation and intelligence, low network planning, construction, optimization, and maintenance efficiency, and unassured service experience. There is an increasing demand for introducing large language model (LLM) for network intelligence. However, the LLM is effective only if it is associated with a digital base.

Therefore, we should prioritize digital transformation and then leverage AN by using LLM and other technologies. An E2E FBB solution that combines an accurate digital base and an advanced LLM for the communications industry can help operators achieve AN L4. The digital base can be viewed as a map application, and LLM as the decision-making master. This integration of "One Map and One Master" is indispensable.

Huawei's "One Map" refers to the iMaster NCE network digital map, which provides full stack visibility for FBB networks and services. "One Map" provides essential data from network level to application level and offers network service status awareness, real-time network data collection, it enables multi-layer and multi-domain full stack visibility and management on active and passive networks. These advanced functions facilitate the digital transformation of operators, providing unprecedented insights and a reliable decision-making basis for LLM.

iMaster NCE's "One Master' is an FBB LLM based on the "One Map". Corpora determine a model's performance. Over the years, Huawei has been working closely with global operators, accumulating tens of billions of corpora specific to the communication industry from expert experience and documentation for solution development, test, and user guides. Huawei used these high-quality corpora and over 20 key patent algorithms to improve LLM capabilities. For instance, the TLHF algorithm accelerates LLM's understanding of network APIs, while the chain of thoughts for communication and reflection algorithm improves the accuracy of multi-API orchestration. All these algorithms have contributed to the development of advanced and professional LLM in the telecom field.

The iMaster NCE network digital map is widely used by over 50 operators worldwide. Since 2019, Huawei has been collaborating with China Mobile Guangdong on the digital transformation of networks. China Mobile Guangdong has developed an O&M mode based on the digital network map for the SPN 5G bearer network. iMaster NCE automatically performs correlative analysis of services provided by poor-QoE base stations, accurately identify fault locations, and provides precise troubleshooting solutions for network quality issues. These functions significantly improve customer satisfaction and accelerate the transition of the SPN bearer network from a toB service bearer network toward a production network. In recent years, the industry has made tremendous breakthroughs, especially in AI. Based on the iMaster NCE network digital map and leveraging core technologies in the FBB field, China Mobile Guangdong developed Net Master, the industry's first LLM application. This application covers all telecom Q&A scenarios and offers excellent intent understanding and fault self-diagnosis capabilities.

Stephen Shao said, " Huawei iMaster NCE One Map and One Master builds the most advanced digital base first and then activates the most professional LLM in telecom domain, enabling automated network decision-making, automatic service configuration, real-time traffic optimization, early risk detection, and fast fault rectification in the FBB field. This enables operators to accelerate toward AN L4 and expedite digital transformation."

For more information, please see https://www.huawei.com/en/huaweitech/techtalks/has24-adn-nce