ZTE's 7nm chips have achieved mass production and 5nm chips will be launched in 2021, ZTE President Xu Ziyang said today.
ZTE today held its 2019 annual shareholders meeting at its headquarters in Shenzhen, with senior management team including Xu Ziyang and ZTE Chairman Li Zixue's attending the meeting.
Xu Ziyang said that in terms of chips, ZTE has done front-end and back-end design, but in terms of production and manufacturing, it is relying on global partners.
He said that ZTE has invested a lot of resources in the core competency of key chips and "we have 30 years of accumulation in the algorithm space to ensure that bandwidth is used to best effect."
He also said that ZTE has already started working on 6G.
He said that if 5G is the Internet of Everything, 6G is the intelligent Internet of Everything, including land, sea, and space, you can connect whatever you can think of.
"The 6G business model may only come out after 2030, and we will carry out all kinds of accumulation during this 10-year period, we have a pre-research team that split off from 5G and started doing research on key technologies for the 6G prototype."
These efforts are supported by a talent program. Xu Ziyang said that in 2019 ZTE recruited 6,000 graduate from the universities and in 2020-2021 ZTE will continue to hire.
Recently, ZTE appointed Ni Fei as general manager of ZTE's terminal business. Ni Fei also serves as president of Nubia.
Xu Ziyang said that with the development of global and Chinese 5G technology and applications, there are new opportunities for terminals, both in terms of technology and market space, which is why ZTE is making adjustments to its terminal business.
Xu Ziyang noted that terminals will change faster and faster, and ZTE's overall competitive strength should be in a better position during this rapid change process.
"This adjustment is for a quick climb, and Ni Fei will follow up with further expressions of his thoughts. We should soon launch new innovative smartphone products with industry-first technology, so stay tuned for ZTE's consumer-facing change."