Harnessing AI to Transform Telecommunications: How Huawei’s ICNMaster Enhances Efficiency, Automates Operations, and Drives Innovation Across China Mobile’s Core Network Sites.
With the advent of new radio access technologies (RAT), the core network structure has become increasingly complex, posing significant challenges to network operation and maintenance. This highlights the urgent need for technological transformation. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has injected new impetus into various industries, and its application to accelerate digital transformation has become a mainstream trend in the communications industry. In response, Huawei has decided to develop ICNMaster, the industry's first intelligent core network operation and management solution based on a founding model of telecommunications. This cutting-edge solution infuses networks with intelligence, streamlines O&M operations, and improves efficiency. ICNMaster has been successfully deployed at many China Mobile sites across the country, including Zhejiang , Qinghai , and Guangdong provinces.
China Mobile Zhejiang, one of the key players in China Mobile's AI+ core network operation and management project, has achieved significant successes through the integration of Huawei's ICNMaster solution. This innovative solution is based on intelligent complaint and alarm handling agents ( CompSpirit and AssurSpirit ), automating some manual operations that previously required expert intervention. As a result, the equivalent of more than 30 experienced digital employees have joined the team, significantly improving operation and management efficiency, addressing the industry challenge of expanding networks without increasing manpower, and opening up new opportunities for productivity.
During monitoring and troubleshooting, the Alarm Handling Agent seamlessly connects to the ticketing system, providing operations and management personnel with immediate access to accurate alarm information through a chatbot-like interface. The agent also provides intelligent recommendations and diagnostics, which has reduced the average handling time for central network alarm tickets from 90 minutes to just 12 minutes, a staggering 87% improvement in efficiency.
For claims processing, the automatic claims handling agent automates the classification and diagnosis of claims, analysis of signals and filling of tickets. Signals can be analyzed through the chatbot in a much simpler and faster procedure of only 5 minutes. As a result, the average end-to-end processing time of claims tickets has been reduced from 14.6 hours to 5.2 hours, a significant improvement in efficiency of more than 64%.
The telecommunications industry is complex and highly specialized, which places stringent demands on AI applications. Huawei ICNMaster transforms the O&M process by introducing a telecom foundation model based on extensive field expertise, industry knowledge, and robust tool integration capabilities. This solution represents a paradigm shift from traditional manual operations with disparate tools to intelligent agents that provide automated orchestration and flexible scheduling of models and tool libraries. It effectively addresses the challenges of cross-departmental and expert collaboration, leverages intelligent capabilities, simplifies processes, and improves O&M efficiency and experience. In the future, Huawei will collaborate with more operators to drive continuous innovation, accelerate the development of intelligent applications, and improve overall O&M and production capabilities. All these efforts aim to enable operators to achieve a high level of autonomy in operating and managing the core network, which will allow them to achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency and excellence.