The first three quarters of collection by operators: 5G investment is basically completed, and computing power investment is finally sprinted

[Communication industry network news] (Reporter Cui Liangliang) At present, the three major operators in 2024 collection has been carried out to three-quarters of the time process. According to the investment budget of 334 billion yuan at the beginning of the year, the three major operators completed a total of 135.1 billion yuan in the first half of the year, then the remaining 1989 billion yuan in the second half of the year, nearly 60% of the investment budget will be accelerated in the end of the months? In the first half of the year, operators had large-scale collection projects in 5G base stations, computing power, and optical communications. From July to September, the three major operators continued to accelerate the acquisition of computing power, satellite communications and optical communications equipment.

Network investment is still important, and intelligence is the key direction

The investment in 5G of operators will peak in 2021, with 5G investment accounting for 54.8%. In recent years, 5G investment has shown a slowing trend, but from the point of view of the first three quarters of 2024, there is still a large-scale 5G collection.

5G investment mainly includes new 5G base stations, base station expansion and network maintenance, as well as new technology and new network upgrades, among which 5G base station construction expenditure accounts for a relatively large proportion. The largest collection of 5G base stations in the first three quarters was that in May, China Mobile purchased 375,000 stations of 2.6GHz/4.9GHz standard 5G wireless main equipment and 105,000 stations of 700M base stations, a total of 480,000 stations, with a total budget of about 40 billion yuan. China Mobile's 5G network investment budget this year is 69 billion yuan, and the 480,000 5G base stations have adopted most of the 5G investment plans.

In addition to 5G base station investment, operator 5G investment has also evolved to 5G-A, and China Mobile has commercialized 5G-A networks in 330 cities. 5G messaging capacity building has been continuously improved. In September, China Mobile released the third phase of 5G messaging system project (the first batch) collection project. Zte and Huawei were the biggest winners. They obtained 60% and 40% shares respectively, involving the construction of 5G messaging systems and MaaP platforms.

In addition, operators are increasingly investing in the digital transformation of their networks. In September, China Mobile released a single-source procurement information announcement on the centralized procurement of cloud signaling network equipment from 2024 to 2025, and Huawei, Shanghai Nokia Bell and ZTE won the bid. Among them, Huawei had 115.3552 million MPS users and 72.5 million NRF users. Shanghai Nokia Bell 1.929m MPS; Zte 5G signaling network equipment 2.716 million MPS.

Cloud signaling network is an important part of future communication network, which plays an important role in realizing digital transformation and information construction. China Mobile opened the cloud signaling network collection bidding in October 2023, with a budget of 1.0333.4 billion yuan (excluding tax, the same as below), reflecting the increasing attention of operators to improve the level of network intelligence.

The scale of collection of computing power is increased to promote the development of domestic computing power

Under the influence of policies such as "new infrastructure" and "East count West count", operators have undertaken the supply and transmission of a large number of basic resources of computing power, so the procurement of computing power has become the focus of operators. In computing power collection, server collection accounts for a relatively large proportion, and the three major operators have gradually increased AI server collection efforts.

The largest computing power collection in the first three quarters, for the 2024 to 2025 new intelligent computing center collection project target package 1 procurement released by China Mobile in May, Kunlun Technology, Hua Kun Zhenyu and other 7 enterprises won the bid, the bid amount of about 19.104 billion yuan, including 7994 artificial intelligence servers.

The second largest collection of computing power is the 2024 PC server collection announced by China Mobile. A total of 22 standard packages, the procurement scale of 264,500 units, has been publicized 21 standard package collection, the total amount of 16.2 billion yuan per month, the largest PC server collection scale in recent years. A total of 19 enterprises won the bid, among which ZTE became the biggest winner, winning a total of 11 parts of the bid, Henan Kunlun, Xinhua SAN won 6 parts of the bid, Sichuan Hongxin won 5 parts of the bid.

At present, the peak of 5G investment has passed, and computing power investment will become the focus of operator investment. In 2024, China Mobile's overall investment budget is 173 billion yuan, down from the previous year, while the computing capital expenditure plan is 47.5 billion yuan, up from the previous year.

This year, China Mobile plans to use three 10,000-card clusters in Harbin, Hohhot and Guiyang, with a total scale of nearly 60,000 GPU cards, to meet the centralized training needs of large models. General computing will continue to grow, and it is expected that China Mobile's intelligent computing scale will reach 17EPLOPS and above in 2024, accounting for about 40% of the company's total computing power scale. In the first three quarters, China Mobile's computing power investment has reached nearly 40 billion yuan, and about one-sixth of the remaining investment budget is expected to be cashed in the fourth quarter.

In September, Unicom Digital Division announced the collection of 2024 general server. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Unicom, Unicom Digital Division is committed to providing high-quality digital solutions for industry users. This time, Henan Kunlun, ZTE and other eight finalists. The total bid amount is 328.9 million yuan. Standard package No. 1 Middle School, Henan Kunlun, Yangtze Computing, Digital China and Baode won the first to fourth place respectively. In the second package, ZTE, Wave, New H3C and Lenovo Kaitian won the first to fourth place. Among them, the first three are the winning candidates, and the fourth is the alternative winning bidder.

According to previous announcements, the purchase is for Unicom Digital Division and its affiliated companies (Unicom Cloud Data Co., LTD., Unicom Big Data Co., LTD., Unicom Internet of Things Co., LTD., Unicom Smart Security Technology Co., LTD.) to purchase universal servers, the number of purchases is 4841 units. They are labeled as "K" (Kunpeng) and "H" (Haiguang) according to the CPU technology path. The "K" section purchased 3363 units, the "H" section purchased 1478 units.

Large-scale computing power collection by operators not only meets their own computing power needs, but also promotes the development of domestic computing power. It is expected that when China Mobile next round of collection, domestic computing power is expected to account for more than 50%. In July, China Telecom started server collection (2024-2025), and the G series, that is, the domestic series of services, accounted for 67.5%, which is the first time that the proportion of China Telecom server collection and localization exceeded half. With the continuous development of the industry and innovation, it is expected that domestic general and AI computing power will be further developed.

The large-scale collection in the first three quarters includes China Unicom's 2024 10G PON product collection, China Telecom's international sea-land cable, China Mobile's 2024 feeder product standard package supplementary procurement, China Telecom's new metro wave division and other projects.

China Unicom 2024 10GPON product collection total amount of nearly 8.4 billion yuan, involving 31 provinces 10GPON equipment and other construction needs, procurement specifications include OLT and other equipment and related supporting products, Huawei, ZTE and Beacon three finalists. At present, 10G PON can not only reduce the transmission cost per bit and provide extremely economical FTTH access, but also more scenarios, such as LTE backhaul and commercial building access. FTTH enterprise users and high-end public users need 50M to 100M or even 1G bandwidth, a large number of 10G PON collection means that 10G PON is becoming the mainstream of optical communication.

China Telecom 2024-2025 headquarters direct management project (optical cable, international sea and land cable and other professional) engineering design service project, the total budget is 2.83 billion yuan. Huaxin Consulting and Design Institute, Zhongtong service and other 7 finalists. This collection includes the whole network planning and design, in accordance with the overall requirements of China Telecom Group cloud network integration, the development of the overall construction plan of the professional, multi-professional collaborative construction plan. At present, the length of China Telecom's global submarine cable is more than 70,000 kilometers, and it has more than 100T of international transmission bandwidth.

China Mobile's feeder product standard package supplement procurement in 2024, in order to further supplement and improve its communication network infrastructure feeder product line, a total of 12 types of feeder products were purchased, with a scale of 77.59 million meters. Last year, China Mobile publicly collected feeders, feeder connectors and cluster jumper products from 2023 to 2024, with a total of 336 million meters of two purchases. The average bidding price of this purchase is about 920 million yuan, and finally eight enterprises such as Hengtong and Zhongtian won the bid. This purchase demonstrates the operator's continued investment and high priority in communications network infrastructure.

Satellite communication gathering: the potential should not be underestimated

In the first three quarters, the operator group and branches continued to carry out satellite communications and other related collection, and actively oriented towards the layout of air and earth. It involves the collection of satellite base station vehicle equipment, portable satellite base station, emergency communication vehicle, satellite emergency communication terminal and other projects.

Among them, China Mobile has a large collection scale for small satellite base station vehicles, which has been collected twice, and Xinhangda and Chongqing Jinguan won the bid, with the amount of more than 50 million yuan respectively. A total of 52 small satellite base station vehicles were collected twice, with an amount of more than 100 million yuan. In addition, portable satellite base stations are also the focus of collection. China Mobile 2024 young integrated satellite base station collection amount of 39.03 million yuan, including portable and high-power portable satellite base stations. Bohao Technology and Chongqing Xinke won the bid.

China Telecom invested 1 billion yuan to establish China Telecom Satellite Communication Company, a professional company directly managed by the group in the field of satellite communication; China Unicom established United Airlines Network Co., LTD., integrating resources from all parties to establish a satellite broadband Internet network covering the world. Through a series of products and one-stop service solutions such as Woxinghai, Woxinglu and Woxingxing, China Unicom provides broadband satellite Internet services for global civil aviation and ocean-going ships. China Mobile, China Star Network and China Ordnance jointly established China Time and Space Information Group Co., LTD. In July, the Institute of space-Earth Integration Technology was established to comprehensively promote the evolution of space-earth integration technology.

Satellite communication is rising rapidly in the field of cellular communications, and behind the operator's increase in satellite communication is to seize the right to speak of 6G technology. Despite the high cost of satellite communication terminal equipment and the high cost of satellite service plans, the satellite communications industry is moving in the direction of long-term growth, and its collection will increase and become more frequent.

Managing Editor: Cui Liangliang