This year's GSMA M360 ASEAN was strategically co-located with the 15th ZTE Global Summit & User Congress. Together, they provided an unparalleled platform for global ICT leaders, policymakers, and ecosystem partners to exchange high-level insights and forge stronger industry partnerships. ZTE Corporation actively participated in GSMA M360 ASEAN 2026 and through keynote speeches, panel discussions, and joint forums, ZTE comprehensively showcased its strategic vision and practical achievements in advancing ASEAN's digital transformation in the AI era.
James Zhang, Senior Vice President at ZTE, delivered the keynote speech titled "Scaling the Summit of AI: Building Digital Trust for a Resilient ASEAN in the AI Era" at GSMA M360 ASEAN 2026. Drawing inspiration from his own experience climbing Mount Kinabalu, he highlighted the courage, teamwork, and effective risk prevention required for humanity's collective entry into the AI era.
"AI creates real-world value only when deployed within business use-cases, yet innovation comes with new risks. Trust is non-negotiable for AI adoption," James Zhang emphasized. He outlined four key pillars that will shape ASEAN's AI future: Sovereign AI, Security, Affordability, and Sustainability. He also expressed concerns over critical challenges, including surging energy and computing costs, a significant energy-efficiency shortfall in AI, and the emergence of an "AI divide" alongside the still-unresolved digital divide.
James Zhang called for collaboration between policymakers and industry players to bridge cost gaps, promote infrastructure sharing, and adopt advanced solutions such as ZTE's SuperPOD high-density computing solution. He also stressed the importance of safeguarding local identities and privacy and providing inclusive AI benefits to all ASEAN societies. ZTE is already working with local partners to develop AI infrastructure in the region, aligned with the DEPA (Digital Economy Partnership Agreement) framework.
Hans Neff, Senior Director of CTO Group and Deputy CTO Europe and Americas at ZTE, reinforced the significance of AI-driven transformation during his speech titled "Building the AI-Ready Digital Health Infrastructure". He stated, "The future of healthcare is not about bringing every patient to the capability—it is about bringing the capability to every patient. When connectivity, compute, trusted data and AI work together, expertise and intelligence can move beyond the hospital and reach people wherever care is needed. That is how we make better healthcare accessible everywhere—safely, intelligently and at scale."
On the same day, ZTE and GSMA co-hosted two congresses, bringing together global operators, industry visionaries, and technology leaders to explore how AI-transformed networks can enhance operational efficiency, create new business monetization opportunities, and drive sustainable development.
The ZTE Global Intelligent Computing Ecosystem Congress was held under the theme "Infinite Intelligence, Thriving Together". Centered on the co-evolution of intelligent computing infrastructure and AI models, the congress brought together representatives from global chip and computing vendors, cloud and internet companies, as well as academic experts. Participants engaged in in-depth discussions on cutting-edge topics including computing evolution in the era of large models, rising demands for Agents and Tokens, inference efficiency enhancement, next-generation cloud infrastructure, SuperPOD architecture, and open intelligent computing ecosystems, jointly exploring the technological trends and industrial practices of future intelligent computing infrastructure.
Meanwhile, ZTE Wireless User Congress, under the theme "AI Reshaped Network Unleashing Infinite Value", focused on ASEAN's 5G+AI opportunities to support the ASEAN "2045 Community Vision" for digital transformation. The congress featured AIR MAX three-layer systematic upgrade architecture, which builds the optimal solution for mobile networks in the 6G+AI era, completing network upgrade from AI enhancement and single-scenario intelligence to full-scenario AI-native intelligence, connecting traditional traffic economy with the new Token economy. Through customer-shared case studies, it showcases the dual benefits of AI-driven enhancements in network performance and commercial returns, providing a replicable reference model for the ASEAN market.
