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[Paris, France, October 22, 2025] At the annual Network X awards ceremony, China Mobile Shandong and Huawei were honored with the “Most Innovative Telco AI Deployment” award for their co-developed Intelligent Network Change Management Platform (INCMP). The platform stood out for its pioneering simulation technology and deep integration with real-world practices, showcasing the partners’ extraordinary collaboration and remarkable achievement in network digitalization and setting a new benchmark for intelligent transformation in global network services.

Network X is a global event in the communications industry, convening leading operators, innovators, and decision makers. Its awards celebrate groundbreaking achievements across the sector, honoring the projects that redefine the industry’s future and also guiding the industry’s continued growth.

China Mobile Shandong operates an IP network serving over 100 million users in Shandong province across mobile Internet, home broadband, enterprise private lines, and IPTV services. As the network expands and service complexity increases, managing configuration changes has become increasingly challenging. Since 2024, the company has executed over 1,500 network changes. Traditional manual configuration verification, which relies heavily on human experience, is prone to errors and omissions, posing risks to network reliability and stability.

To address these challenges, China Mobile Shandong partnered with Huawei to integrate Huawei’s next-generation Centralized Model-Operation Simulation (CMOS) algorithm from iMaster NCE into the INCMP. Together, they built a “zero-error” autonomous network, delivering three major improvements:

• Pre-change predictive simulation: The INCMP simulates network states and performance after configuration changes, and automatically marks anomalies to proactively mitigate risks.
• In-change precise control: The INCMP supports batch configuration delivery and policy combination verification to minimize impact on users.
• Post-change visualized traceability: The INCMP records the entire configuration change process and compares simulation results with actual network changes, reducing fault locating time from hours to minutes.

Operation statistics have confirmed the platform’s remarkable improvements: major incidents have been prevented, network migration efficiency has improved by nearly 60%, and user complaints have dropped to near zero. China Mobile Shandong has also incorporated the change simulation pass rate into the operation workflows of several critical network change scenarios, driving the province-wide standardization of network operations and maintenance.

At present, the INCMP covers over 1,000 network devices, and supports configuration change verification for tens of millions of home broadband users and millions of enterprise and government clients. It is now the most extensively deployed communication network simulation system in Shandong province.

This deployment has significantly boosted the network change success rate and ensured high continuity and availability of network operations, laying a solid foundation for China Mobile Shandong’s journey toward Level 4 autonomous networks. It also marks a major milestone in the company’s digital transformation and offers a replicable model for the broader communications industry.

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Heineken reported a significant drop in beer sales in the third quarter on the back of a “challenging” quarter in which economic volatility weighed on consumer sentiment.

The volume of beer the Dutch brewing giant sold in the three months to September fell 4.3 per cent, a deeper decline than the previous quarter, driven by weakening consumer demand and “trade uncertainties” in North and South America, and continued slow growth in Europe. 

It also warned annual profits would be at the lower end of its forecast range of 4 to 8 per cent.

“Macroeconomic volatility persisted as anticipated and became more pronounced in the third quarter, creating a challenging environment, resulting in a mixed performance,” said chief executive Dolf van den Brink. 

Brewing majors AB InBev and Carlsberg, which report next week, are also forecast to announce falling beer sales, as consumers around the world cut back on spending.

Heineken, which brews Amstel, Birra Moretti and Cruzcampo, said revenues fell 1.4 per cent on an organic basis to €8.7bn, although net revenue fell 0.3 per cent to €7.3bn, a lower than expected decline.

The brewer’s results come ahead of its capital markets day on Thursday, when the company is expected to present a plan to reboot its faltering sales.

Commenting on the news that inflation for food and non-alcoholic beverages stood at 4.5% in September, Chris Jaccarini, food and farming analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said: “Food price inflation remained above the headline rate, as the impacts of extreme weather at home and abroad continue to feed through to consumers. UK farmers faced one of the worst harvests ever this year [1], following the hottest summer and spring on record. Although weather is only part of the story, climate change is playing a clear role and farmers are worried [2].
 
“Europe is the fastest warming continent [3], and climate-impacted foods are responsible for around 40% of food price inflation [4], pushing up all our food bills. Extreme weather has driven up the cost of British staples like milk and butter, as well as imports such as coffee, cocoa and olive oil.
 
“Climate change poses a systemic threat to our health, living standards and food security. Central banks may be tasked with controlling inflation, but they can’t avoid climate-driven food price spikes — only cutting emissions to net zero and restoring climate balance can.” 
 
Today’s figures come a day after new analysis from the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) showed that the price of foods hit by extreme weather are rising over four times faster than others in the average shop. The analysis finds that although these items –  butter, beef, milk, coffee and chocolate- make up just 11% of the average shopping basket, they account for nearly 40% of all food price inflation [4]. These items remained the food types with the highest rate of inflation in September, as climate shocks continue to reduce discretionary income.

ENDS

Notes to editors: 

1. https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/2025/england-has-second-worst-harvest-on-record-comment

2. https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/2025/farmer-confidence-battered-by-climate-change-new-research

3. https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/european-state-of-climate-extreme-events-warmest-year-record

4. https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/2025/why-food-prices-are-still-rising-butter-beef-and-milk-to-blame 

For more information or for interview requests:

George Smeeton, Head of Communications, ECIU, Tel: 07894 571 153, email: george.smeeton@eciu.net