5G offers tightened security and will improve lives

5G offers more opportunities while upgrading security, explains Tony Graziano

By Tony Graziano

20 Dec 2018

These days, in Brussels and beyond, there is a lot of talk about the disruptive potential of Artificial Intelligence and about 5G.

Huawei is at the forefront of development and deployment of AI and 5G in Europe.

We strongly believe that both technologies will make life for better Europeans and that this positive change will enable Europe to successfully navigate the uncharted oceans of digital transformation.


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Our multinational ICT company is a natural partner to take Europe into the digital age.

As many readers are probably aware, Huawei is 100 percent employee-owned. This makes us unique. We are a completely private company. Another interesting fact is that Huawei is not listed on any stock exchange.

This makes us immune to short-sighted pressure from financial investors. Instead, we have been constantly investing big sums in fundamental research.

Our research and development spending was over 10 percent of our revenue last year.

“Huawei is at the forefront of development and deployment of AI and 5G in Europe”

Huawei is more committed to Europe than ever. The thousands of great minds working for us all across the European Union contribute to Huawei being the number one company when it comes to filing patents with the European Patent Office.

Huawei has established R&D and innovation facilities in 12 European countries, and is working with more than 100 top European universities.

Europe’s digital economy is growing by 12 percent a year; seven times the rate of the rest of the economy. ICT contributes to 50 percent of Europe’s productivity growth and has already created over seven million jobs.

The deployment of both AI and of 5G are only just beginning and offer far more potential, which cannot be missed.

On the debate around 5G security, it is important to underline that 5G is more secure than 4G.

This is the result of a continuous international effort and commitment to build a secure communication environment for mobile consumers and all industry stakeholders.

It is also based on the fact that all the expertise we learned from previous generations has been further reviewed and enhanced into 5G security design.

5G has adopted a similar network design as 4G, in the sense that radio access network and core network are clearly separated with fully specified interfaces.

That means 5G will keep the similar trust model as 4G and does not bring additional security vulnerabilities from architecture and deployment perspectives.

Also, 256-bit encryption is internationally earmarked for data transmission in 5G networks (4G uses 128bit encryption).

The 256-bit encryption is so powerful that even future quantum computers would need millions of years to crack it.

The encryption of 5G networks will generate, store and transmit keys in a highly secured way. The keys are not held by Huawei - we just provide the infrastructure equipment - but by governments or telco operators.

Clearly, 5G offers more opportunities and at the same time upgrades security.

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