The year 2024 marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of New China, and it is also an important year for China Unicom to continue to strive for a new start after A Century of Legacy, Thirty Years of Innovation. China Unicom conscientiously implemented the important instructions and directives of General Secretary Xi Jinping, actively served the national strategy, and earnestly fulfilled social responsibilities. It took proactive actions in the construction of Cyber Superpower, Digital China, and Technology Superpower, actively undertook responsibilities in rural revitalization, communications support missions, and flood and typhoon emergency services, and made efforts to resolve risks, optimise deployment, and innovate development work. Its core functions continued to strengthen, and its core competitiveness kept improving, contributing Unicom’s wisdom and strength to promoting Chinese-style modernization through integrated innovation.
Focusing on network innovation, solidifying the digital foundation of the economy and society. China Unicom resolutely shouldered the mission and responsibility of building Cyber Superpower and Digital China, accelerated the construction of intelligent and comprehensive digital information infrastructure, and built a robust information channel for economic and social development. The Company strengthened the infrastructure of Connectivity and Communications, with a cumulative construction of over 1.375 million 5G mid-band base stations, accelerated the large-scale application of 5G-A, achieved gigabit coverage in developed towns and above, steadily advanced the construction of ten-gigabit cities, promoted the integration of terrestrial, submarine, and air networks, helped narrow the digital divide, and enhanced customer service experience. We comprehensively undertook the “Eastern Data and Western Computing”, constructed a new pattern of “Computing and Digital Smart Applications” infrastructure with comprehensive coverage, intelligent upgrades, high efficiency and energy saving, and smart security. We established over 300 computing power resource pools, with cloud pools covering more than 270 cities. We developed two clusters with over 10,000 AI accelerators in Shanghai and Hohhot, accelerated the construction of the “New Eight Verticals and Eight Horizontals” backbone optical cable network, and created a high-throughput, high-performance, and highly intelligent computing power AI Network (AINet), to solidify the foundation of “Computing and Digital Smart Applications” for “Digital China”. We accelerated the global network infrastructure “hardware connectivity”, with international submarine cable resource capacity reaching 100T, newly established Qingdao and Haikou international exchanges, network resources accessible in 80 countries and regions worldwide, enhancing our global intelligent computing deployment to better serve the high-quality joint development of the “Belt and Road”. We continuously consolidated the “Chief Security Officer” brand image, successfully completed the communication support tasks for 127 major national events, actively participated in emergency rescue operations for Typhoon “Yagi”, the breach of Dongting Lake in Tuanzhou Dike, Huarong County, Hunan, and the heavy rain and floods in Huludao, Liaoning, setting up a communication “lifeline” for the affected people.
Focusing on technology innovation, accelerating the development of new productivity. China Unicom fully plays its role as a main body of technological innovation, promotes the integrated development of technological and industrial innovation, facilitates the commercialization of technology, the marketization of products, and the scaling of markets, accelerating its transformation into an important component of the national strategic technological strength. We deeply implemented the central enterprise industry renewal action and the future industry launch action, bravely undertook the important task of building “two chains and two places”, continuously promoted the construction of a modern industrial chain leader in network security, established a network security industry fund, and achieved excellent results in the chain leader performance evaluation by the SASAC of the State Council; accelerated the construction of leading enterprises in artificial intelligence chains, launched the advanced performance, proprietary and controllable UniAI foundation models, created industry models understanding customers, and promoted the innovative, secure, and inclusive development of artificial intelligence; created a source of original technologies for the next-generation internet, completed the industry’s first ultra-long-distance lossless transmission live network verification; created a source of original technologies for big data, strengthened the dual leadership of technology and market in providing credible data service supply, empowering economic operations, social governance, and livelihood security to achieve positive results. The efficiency of technological innovation continued to improve, with the intensity of R&D expenditure exceeding 4%. The Company has taken the lead in the completion of 40 international standards, with 9,397 effective patents. One project won the first prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award, and two projects won the second prize of National Technological Invention Award. We established innovation platforms jointly with national laboratories and key universities and co-founded a joint fund with the National Natural Science Foundation to facilitate the smooth transition from the “first kilometre” of technological innovation to the “last kilometre” of achievement monetisation. Continuously upgrading intelligent capabilities, we ranked first in the comprehensive evaluation of digital transformation IOMM for three consecutive years, passed the national standard (DTMM) level four certification for digital transformation maturity assessment with the highest score in the industry, setting a benchmark for digital transformation among central state-owned enterprises.
Focusing on service innovation, continuously enhancing the quality of services for the people. China Unicom practises the people-centred development philosophy, accelerates the integration of digital and real economies, enhances the integrated service supply in connectivity, computing, data, intelligence, and security, continuously meets the growing needs of the public for digital and intelligent life, and promotes the upgrade of the industrial system towards intelligence, greenness, and integration. We adhered to the new integration to expand new scenarios of digital smart life, continuously enriching the product supply such as 5G messages, cloud phones, Unicom UHD, Unicom Cloud Drive, Unicom Housekeeper, etc., the Filial Piety Card and Silver Age Card packages benefited over 5 million subscribers for the disabled and elderly, empowering information consumption for thousands of households. We assisted the high-quality development of the digital economy, advancing the large-scale application of “5G + Industrial Internet”, with over 7,100 5G factories constructed. The Gewu Unilink Industrial Internet Platform has become one of the first national-level A-grade cross-industry and cross domain platforms, comprehensively empowering the deep and practical advancement of new industrialization. We served digital government construction, creating 57 digital government products and fully supporting the intelligent upgrade of the 12345 hotline. We served digital culture development, creating products such as the large model for museum explanation and the large model for cultural relic revitalization, to promote diverse development of digital culture. We served the construction of a digital society, developed an all-area digital transformation product capability system for cities, providing intelligent solutions for sectors such as education, healthcare, transportation, and emergency management. The China Unicom Digital Village platform covers 260,000 administrative villages, aiding rural revitalization. We served the construction of a digital ecology, promoting the integration of digital intelligence technology with river and lake governance and ecological environmental protection, strengthening the innovative application of energy-saving and carbon reduction technologies, and serving the construction of a beautiful China.
Focusing on deepening reform to stimulate the vitality and momentum of innovative development. China Unicom has always adhered to the “Two Consistencies”, deeply advancing reform to strengthen the enterprise, and promote the formation of production relations more compatible with new quality productivity and continuously enhancing the modernization level of the Company’s governance system and governance capability. We comprehensively advanced the reform deepening and enhancement actions, integrated and promoted special actions such as value creation and management enhancement, and received an A grade in the key task assessment of the reform deepening and enhancement actions for central enterprises by the SASAC of the State Council, as well as in the value creation action assessment of central enterprises benchmarking world-class enterprises. We established a collaborative and efficient operational organisation system, accelerated the construction of an independent innovation capability system, and set up innovative entities such as the Data Intelligence Company, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Innovation Research Institute, Hong Kong Innovation Research Institute, and Chongqing Rural Revitalization Research Institute. Four professional subsidiaries have been recognised as national level “Little Giant” enterprises specialising in niche markets. We continuously improved the modern corporate system, the standardisation and effectiveness of the subsidiary’s board of directors have been continuously enhanced, and it has been rated as excellent for four consecutive years in the board construction assessment by the SASAC of the State Council. We improved the market-oriented operating mechanism, deeply advanced the reform of three systems, established a high-level talent echelon, streamlined promotion and incentive channels, enhanced employees’ sense of happiness and fulfilment, and formed a community of shared development between the Company and employees.
The year 2025 marks the conclusion of the 14th Five-Year Plan and the planning year for the 15th Five-Year Plan. China Unicom will adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, thoroughly implement the important instructions and directives of General Secretary Xi Jinping, and earnestly fulfil the work requirements of Premier Li Qiang during his visit symposium. It actively serves the national strategy, courageously acts as the leading contributor of digital information operation and services and the pioneer of digital technology integration and innovation, deeply implements the integrated innovation strategy, strives to make greater strides in promoting high-quality corporate development, accelerates its transformation into a world-class technology service enterprise with global competitiveness, and makes new contributions to the construction of Cyber Superpower and Digital China.
