IG1218J China Unicom Practice on Autonomous Networks and L4 Blueprint v1.0.0

Encouraged by state policy to develop the digital economy, the ICT industry in China is pivoting toward an era of high-quality development. The launch of ChatGPT in 2023 largely proclaimed the start of the intelligent era. With the prospect of everything digitalized, automated, intelligent, and cross-domain converged, operators and enterprises can look forward to improved efficiency and value. These characteristics will bring new opportunities and challenges to the ICT industry.

This paper delves into the ideas and achievements of China Unicom’s practice in building AN. Firstly, the strategic objectives, evolution paths, effectiveness indicators, panoramic view, level standards, and target architecture of AN are specified. Secondly, the paper then moves on to describe the four steps that are critical to the operator’s closed-loop implementation network-wide, including as-is evaluation, gap analysis, planning & design, and deployment & promotion. Thirdly, the paper lays out five best innovative applications selected for network-wide promotion. Fourthly, the paper sheds some light on the operator’s industry partnership policy in AN.