In 2025, the "speed of going global" depends on digitization.

In 2025, for Chinese enterprises, going global is no longer an option, but the "speed of going global" remains a choice.

The speed of localized manufacturing, the speed of channel building, and the speed of entering digital and intelligent operations are gradually widening the gap among enterprises going global under the same conditions. This is because, unlike the product selection logic in the first half of going global. Currently, in the period of large-scale going global of industries and supply chains, the efficient circulation of data is becoming the most critical factor of production.

It can be said that the cost and efficiency of information services have become prerequisites.

From the perspective of the C-end, the public has clearly felt that the cost of overseas traffic is decreasing year by year. Domestic operators represented by China Mobile are accelerating the layout speed of global business.

However, on the proposition of enterprises going global, many people think that communication operators are still in the stage of network computing power infrastructure construction, while China Mobile has won the first place in Omdia's "Telecom Operator Digital Strategy Benchmark Analysis" for three consecutive years.

This is actually similar to NVIDIA, which has become the number one in the semiconductor market, with CUDA as the key innovation force. Under the wave of going global, the digital and intelligent enterprise service stage of operators is also in full swing. Globally, China Mobile's digital strategy is closely related to the future direction of iSolutions, the enterprise service brand of China Mobile International (hereinafter referred to as China Mobile International).

Digitalization of Going Global, Returning to Operators

For enterprises going global, deciding the route is only the beginning of participating in the reshuffle. Once landed, it may be found that the "code of wealth" is often hidden in unexpected environmental factors.

There is a consensus among Chinese enterprises going global at present that the capacity spillover and supply chain dividends of thousands of industries in China are mostly based on the maturity of the digital economy and digital technology. And this is also one of the main reasons why the layout of the "new world" order is different from that of the traditional foreign trade era.

Whether it is the business model of cross-border e-commerce or localized production and manufacturing, the core lifeline of enterprises going global cannot be separated from two points: First, the infrastructure cost of application technologies such as network and computing power; Second, the intelligent efficiency improvement in localized operations.

In the fast-paced going global competition, these two are not independent, but need to be integrated and interact with each other. This is why, in the process of accompanying Chinese enterprises to go global, enterprise service providers have increasingly felt that it is difficult to solve problems by the previous SaaS logic. Extending from the single-point capability to the complete intelligent scene has earlier become the mainstream solution for going global.

And it is not difficult to find from the experience of most enterprises going global that the infrastructure cost is the foundation, and the purpose of laying a good foundation is to leave a convenient environment and sufficient space for the second step of efficiency improvement.

But for Chinese enterprises, the reason why going global is a "survival game" is that a solid, flexible and cost-effective foundation like that in China is actually very rare in the global soil.

For example, in the past year, the African market has been favored and explored by more and more Chinese enterprises.

The African consumer market itself is a blue ocean, and its endogenous foreign trade demand is also gradually changing from purchasing goods to introducing Chinese manufacturing machines and technologies. Therefore, all walks of life have huge potential for development.

However, the digital infrastructure and local communication services in Africa have always been a hidden concern for Chinese enterprises going global. Although the communication and digital system in the European and American markets is the most mature, the high cost of communication services and labor, and the strict data compliance system are also daunting.

Therefore, the pain point that combines the needs of the physical world and the digital world is basically impossible for digital enterprise service providers to solve independently. The "intelligent project" of the information artery still needs to return to communication operators.

In recent years, China's three major operators have begun to continuously exert efforts in going global enterprise services, including accelerating the computing power network infrastructure construction in emerging regions and building domain-based solutions.

Among them, the direction of China Mobile International is to extend the global network scale to the new digital infrastructure represented by the intelligent computing center, and then provide enterprises with a one-stop cloud-network integration solution. At present, China Mobile International has set up 39 business points and 5 self-built data centers globally, and the scale of the data center has reached 121MW. It is expected that by 2030, the number of overseas PoP points of China Mobile will exceed 1,000.

Since 2020, China Mobile has jointly initiated the 2Africa Submarine Cable Construction Project with several international operators. This is one of the largest and most widely covered submarine cable projects on the African continent in the world, and it is also to create a high-quality entry environment for Chinese enterprises to go global to Africa.

It is understood that the 2Africa submarine cable is about 45,000 kilometers long, and the system design capacity is as high as 180Tbps. It is a veritable "super information highway". After its opening, 33 countries along the route can enjoy efficient and convenient international connections, especially benefiting the outbreak of mobile Internet applications and the digital transformation of enterprises in African countries.

In fact, it is not difficult to find from the revenue of China Mobile that the proportion of digitalization continues to increase. According to the financial report data, the proportion of China Mobile's digital transformation in communication service revenue has exceeded 30%.

This also shows that after solving the pain point of network speed, digital solutions such as cloud computing, AI, and data processing have become the key needs of enterprises going global, and also the most significant competitive advantage of Chinese enterprises.

In the future, in the operator field with strong dominance and first-mover effects, intelligent computing resources and digital enterprise service capabilities will also be regarded as the "first dimension" of scientific and technological innovation capabilities.

Growing Innovative Fruits on the Communication Artery

The "imminent" application of AI in the era of intelligence and cloud computing for enterprises going global is closely related. This is because the value of data assets has reached its peak in the era of large models and AI.

From the technical environment perspective, on the basis of the basic network and computing power "artery", several indispensable factors have emerged for communication operators to polish efficient going global solutions for thousands of industries:

First, the data ecosystem requires long-term running-in. In 2025, for enterprises going global to build local digital and intelligent capabilities, the most difficult problem to solve is still the last mile problem.

The advantage of China Mobile International is that it has a large number of data cooperation centers globally, and in China, it has also long screened and accumulated high-quality technical service providers involving various modules such as cloud services, edge computing, the Internet of Things, and data security. These service providers themselves are also a part of the going global wave and need to be carried on the communication artery. Therefore, China Mobile International naturally has the value of integration.

In the process of cross-border data service cooperation with a Chinese-funded automotive institution, the one-stop innovation solution provided by China Mobile International fully demonstrates that technological innovation can effectively support new business models and alleviate the risk pressure brought by regulations.

Due to the large amount of data generated by going global that needs to be transmitted back to China for analysis and processing, but it will involve "fatal risks" such as data privacy compliance and data storage. This institution and China Mobile International jointly created a one-stop solution of "AI privacy desensitization + compliant storage + transmission". Finally, a high-speed data desensitization technology with an accuracy rate of up to 98% was achieved, and the data was safely and compliantly stored and transmitted back to China after processing privacy information such as faces and license plates.

Second, the integration ability of the network ecosystem. After the deployment and coverage of PoP points are expanded from point to area, whether it can enable technology innovation enterprises to conduct localized AI applications at a relatively low cost by highly integrating resources such as data centers and computing power centers is a prerequisite for domestic large-scale models and AI companies that have frequently participated in the "going global coming-of-age ceremony" to participate in global competition. Without the long-term optimization and promotion of operator services, the innovation advantages of technology enterprises are difficult to be reflected, and efficient going global cannot be achieved.

Third, the popularity of digital life services for small and micro enterprises and the C-end. C-end digital business, while improving the end-user experience, can also strengthen the digital skills and awareness of localized employees.

In this regard, enterprise service brands such as China Mobile International, which are rooted in the field of communication services, have always been at the forefront. As information service providers who better understand the fast-paced growth and competition, their own going global layouts basically start from the borderless experience of information services, but are not limited to this.

Farewell to Wild Gold Digging, Efficiency Supports Value

Another going global trend in 2025 is that the fantasy of "wild gold digging" may be completely shattered.

Facing the increasingly early layout, the contingency of technological outbreaks, and the uncertainty of competition, data-driven refined operations have almost become the only controllable growth point for enterprises.

Even in relatively "backward" emerging markets, the demand for cost reduction and efficiency increase will not return to China ten years ago, because the efficiency revolution is irreversible. If enterprises going global cannot achieve efficiency standardization, it is difficult to truly participate in the "business war".

In some high-potential fields with fierce competition, the value of efficiency is particularly obvious. Take a Chinese-funded automotive enterprise going global project served by China Mobile International as an example. The global strategy of this automotive enterprise has multiple destinations. The vehicle networking and in-vehicle applications are one of the product highlights, but the difficulty of cross-border data transmission and data transmission between the vehicle and the cloud is great. At the same time, there are certain differences in technical implementation methods and management methods when cooperating with local operators respectively.

Based on this demand, China Mobile International provides a vehicle networking solution, which not only aggregates high-quality overseas operator resources, but also provides a unified connection platform, allowing enterprises to access and manage in a one-stop manner. In addition, through the cloud-network data transmission solution, the data transmission between the vehicle and the cloud platform is solved stably and at high speed.

Compared with enterprises looking for local operators one by one for project cooperation, China Mobile International has opened up global communication and data services from both its own and cooperative aspects, which can help enterprises conduct global layouts at a lower cost and a faster speed.

In a 5G smart factory project of a Chinese-funded new energy manufacturing enterprise going global to Europe, the "efficiency problem" has also been well answered.

Due to the generally high 5G cost in Europe, but the new energy factory requires 5G private network coverage, China Mobile International uses the OneCyber 5G private network operation platform and international dedicated line links to achieve the global access of the enterprise in Europe. The solution not only meets the enterprise's 5G application requirements for high bandwidth and low latency, but also realizes visible and controllable management and operation, and the production efficiency is increased by 17%.

The speed of data processing, the cost of private networks and computing power are all efficiency scenarios that domestic enterprises can clearly feel in recent years. To a large extent, this is due to the fact that as the basic communication supporter, operators, in addition to the business logic, also need to undertake the responsibility of popularizing science and technology and creating value space for enterprises. The same is true in the overseas market.

And compared with setting up their own camps, the theme of going global has long become co-construction and sharing, and looking for benchmark answers together.

As a communication service provider, the enterprise management problems that China Mobile International can deeply solve are also reflected in many office landing links. For example, cross-border business travel is an area with a very large space for cost optimization in the actual operation of going global.

iSolutions has been "saving money" for enterprises through business travel communication, and has launched welfare activities for enterprises, including cross-border voice and traffic gift packages, ensuring the security of traffic data while reducing costs. This year, on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the establishment of China Mobile International, in order to thank and give back to customers, in addition to cross-border voice and traffic gift packages, it has also launched free trials of cloud-network products, intelligent applications, and DICT services.

Written in the End

Looking back at the course of Made in China, the mature and complete industrial chain is actually born from the self-driven force of enterprises to grow upward and the sense of cooperation for common growth.

And before the industrial chain becomes mature, it is the network and communication capabilities that China's market leads the world, as well as the focus of leading operators on enterprise services, that connect these ecological potentials.

Today, the goal of going global is to tell the story of Made in China and Chinese technology again in a localized narrative. The technological era and the way of market channel development are not the same, but what remains unchanged is that the digital gene is still the "elephant in the room".

In the process of globalization, there are huge uncertainties, as well as a sense of security that makes enterprises "not feel strange when they first arrive". For example, service providers like China Mobile International are accompanying Chinese enterprises to go global, and together extending high-quality product services from China to the world.