BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Voice services lie at the heart of operator services and play a crucial role in society. By 2025, the number of New Calling users in China had surpassed 80 million, with the user base steadily expanding. Over 70 terminal models now support data channel (DC) capabilities. China Mobile has introduced an AI life assistant, offering many services through calls, including medical consultations and medication purchases, truly achieving call-as-a-service. Furthermore, New Calling is extending beyond China’s borders as operators like Kuwait’s Zain, Saudi Arabia’s stc, and Thailand’s AIS begin to roll out features such as Visualized Voice Calling and simultaneous interpretation, broadening the scope for global growth.

When it comes to service experience, voice services continue to evolve alongside advancements in communications networks. With the advent of 5G-A and AI, these services are moving toward more immersive and interactive experiences. Huawei’s AI Calling solution leverages the dial pads of mobile phones and the huge number resources of operators. Integrating AI technologies enhances the call experience and allows operators to establish a new, promising service entry.

To tackle the challenges posed by the coexistence of multiple generations of voice networks, Huawei has developed the converged bare-metal Single Voice Core (SVC) solution. This solution unifies access for 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, and fixed-line users into a single network, enabling operators to seamlessly retire outdated equipment and transition to a bare-metal architecture. It ensures “one-time investment, long-term benefits” for operators.

By integrating noise cancellation technology into the fully-converged SVC network, operators can deliver crystal-clear calls, elevating HD calls to an immersive experience and improving their quality for all users, across all terminals. Regarding innovations in voice services, calling assistants can meaningfully improve the call process through features like intelligent call answering, real-time translation, and post-call summaries. In DC-based interactive services, multi-modal general assistants can handle complex tasks during calls, bridging various industries with phone numbers and offering a unified service entry in the AI era.

MWC 2026 will take place from March 2 to 5 in Barcelona, Spain. Huawei is excited to collaborate with global industry partners to turn every call into an AI-powered one, improve the quality of every connection, and usher in the next era of call-as-a-service.

Purpose-built equipment combining advanced thermal efficiency, scalable architectures, and a globally validated partner framework

TAIPEI, Feb. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — ASUS today announced ASUS Optimized Liquid-Cooling Solutions and a strategic partner framework designed to address the escalating thermal, power, and density challenges of next-generation AI and high-performance computing data centers.

ASUS Optimized Liquid-Cooling Solutions for next-generation AI compute density

As AI and HPC workloads push compute density and power consumption beyond the capabilities of traditional air cooling, optimized liquid-cooling solutions by ASUS will provide the critical thermal management required for the next-generation NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 system based data centers. By efficiently dissipating heat from high-performance CPUs, GPUs, and accelerator-dense racks, ASUS significantly reduces energy consumption, lowers PUE, and optimizes TCO while supporting unprecedented rack density.

ASUS Optimized Liquid-Cooling Solutions offer a comprehensive portfolio spanning direct-to-chip (D2C), in-row CDU–based cooling, and hybrid configurations, enabled through collaboration with global infrastructure leaders. Leveraging a strategic framework of partners — including Schneider and Vertiv, alongside precision components from Auras Technology, Cooler Master, and other industry leaders —ASUS provides purpose-built cooling solutions that ensure optimal stability and performance at scale. With 2,156 No. 1 SPEC CPU^® records and 248 No. 1 MLPerf^™ results, ASUS continues to demonstrate leadership in real-world compute density and AI performance.

Real-world deployment: ASUS powers liquid-cooled AI supercomputer at NCHC

A flagship example of liquid-cooling expertise by ASUS is its recent deployment for the National Center for High-performance Computing, National Institutes of Applied Research (NCHC, NIAR) in Taiwan. The system features a dual-compute architecture, including the Nano4 NVIDIA HGX H200 cluster and NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 system — Taiwan’s first fully liquid-cooled AI supercomputer deployment of this architecture.

Designed and engineered by ASUS from the ground up, the system implements direct liquid-cooling (DLC) technology to achieve an exceptional power-usage effectiveness (PUE) of just 1.18. This deployment seamlessly integrates high performance with sustainable design, demonstrating the strength of ASUS in thermal and energy management for large-scale AI infrastructure.

Join ASUS at GTC 2026

ASUS announced its participation as a Diamond Sponsor (Booth #421) at NVIDIA GTC 2026 from March 16–19 in San Jose, USA. Under the theme Trusted AI, Total Flexibility, ASUS is collaborating with NVIDIA and global infrastructure giants to showcase a robust, next-generation liquid-cooling ecosystem. Come explore with us and witness the next evolution of AI infrastructure.

AVAILABILITY & PRICING 

ASUS servers are available worldwide. Please contact your local ASUS representative for further information.

– Selected routes now support QR code boarding –

SINGAPORE, Feb. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Trip.com, a global online travel service provider, has partnered with East Japan Railway Company, Central Japan Railway Company, West Japan Railway Company, and Kyushu Railway Company to launch the sale of Shinkansen tickets across Japan for international travellers.

In recent years, Japan has emerged as one of the most popular travel destinations in Asia, attracting growing interest from travellers around the world. Through its multilingual global platform, Trip.com enables international visitors to purchase Shinkansen tickets in advance in their preferred language, offering greater convenience when planning travel within Japan.

With this service, travellers can select their departure and arrival stations, travel date, train, and seat type—non-reserved, reserved, or Green Car—and purchase Shinkansen tickets online via Trip.com. Depending on the ticket type, passengers can either pass through ticket gates using a QR code or collect physical tickets from ticket vending machines at stations.

＊＊The Tokaido Shinkansen, Sanyo Shinkansen, and Kyushu Shinkansen are available exclusively via QR code boarding.

By securing Shinkansen tickets online prior to departure, international travellers can reduce concerns related to on-site ticket purchases and language barriers, ensuring a smoother and more stress-free travel experience within Japan. Another key feature of the service is the ability to book Shinkansen tickets together with other travel products, such as flights and accommodation, all in one place.

Trip.com will continue to work closely with Japan’s major transportation providers to create a seamless travel environment, enabling travellers from around the world to explore destinations across Japan with greater ease and comfort.

• Only a quarter (26%) of business leaders have sent employees for customer and service excellence training in the past two years, while about a quarter (27%) say they are not planning for any training investment in this area.
• Even with over two-thirds (68%) of business leaders reporting confidence in their teams’ ability to deliver customer and service excellence, nearly one in five (17%) report low confidence, highlighting a gap between expectations and workforce readiness.
• Business leaders identify proactive service that anticipates customer needs (44%) as the leading trend shaping customer and service excellence, followed by AI-enabled service delivery such as chatbots and virtual assistants (42%), and human-centric service design (38%).

SINGAPORE, Feb. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — While customer expectations evolve across sectors, training adoption is low. Only about a quarter (26%) of business leaders have sent staff for relevant training in the past two years, while about one in four (27%) say they are not planning for any training investment in this area.

Organisational confidence reflects this readiness gap. Despite over two-thirds (68%) of business leaders expressing some confidence in their teams’ ability to deliver customer and service excellence, nearly one in five (17%) report low confidence (16% not very confident, 1% not confident at all) in their team’s current capabilities, indicating that expectations continue to outpace workforce readiness.

These are some of the key findings from NTUC LearningHub’s Industry Insights Report on Customer and Service Excellence, which surveyed a total of 200 business leaders to explore the current landscape of customer and service excellence across key sectors in Singapore.

Business leaders identify proactive service that anticipates customer needs (44%) as the leading trend shaping customer and service excellence, followed by Artificial Intelligence or AI-enabled service delivery (42%), and human-centric service design (38%). Furthermore, these strategic shifts are translating into measurable benefits, with business leaders citing improved customer loyalty and retention (54%), stronger brand differentiation and reputation (46%), and attracting new customers (44%) as top benefits of improving service excellence.

Additionally, technology is widely viewed as a key enhancer of customer and service excellence. Over nine in ten business leaders rate technology as important (29% very important, 63% quite important) in strengthening their service capabilities and only a minority (8%) view technology as having little to no importance. AI-powered chatbots and virtual concierges (38%) enhance responsiveness and availability, while self-service platforms (36%) improve convenience and allow customers to resolve issues independently.

Sustainability is also regarded as an important contributor to customer and service excellence, with more than four in five business leaders rating it as very important (22%) and quite important (64%). Businesses are embedding sustainability into service delivery through digital-first processes such as paperless billing (39%) and reinforcing operational and social responsibility through sustainable technology adoption (26%), waste reduction initiatives (24%) and community sustainability programmes (24%).

However, the report underscores that technology and sustainability initiatives alone are not sufficient to deliver service excellence, as workforce capabilities are critical in customer and service excellence. Business leaders have also identified key training areas that are essential for service employees today to deliver service excellence outcomes. Effective communication (56%) is the top training priority, followed by customer experience strategy and transformation (49%), service recovery and complaint handling (47%), emotional intelligence (43%), and personalising customer experience (38%).

Encouragingly, there is strong recognition of the value of formal skills validation. Nearly nine in ten (85%) business leaders consider industry-recognised certifications in customer and service excellence to be either very important or quite important for validating employee competencies.

Commenting on the report’s findings, Mr Tay Ee Learn, Assistant Chief Executive and Chief Sector Skills Officer, NTUC LearningHub, says, “Customer and service excellence today requires more than systems and technology. It depends heavily on the human capabilities, confidence and judgement of frontline and operational teams. While many organisations are investing in digital tools and sustainability initiatives, the findings show that workforce readiness has not kept pace. Without timely and structured investment in capability building, employees may struggle to deliver consistent, human-centred experiences, particularly in complex or high-value service situations. Building strong service capabilities through targeted training and industry-recognised certifications is therefore critical to strengthening employee confidence, improving service consistency, and ensuring that technology-enabled service models deliver meaningful outcomes for both customers and businesses.”

To download the Industry Insights Report on Customer and Service Excellence, please visit https://www.ntuclearninghub.com/media/research-reports/2026/customer-service-excellence. To find out more about the courses, training, and grants, please contact NTUC LearningHub at www.ntuclearninghub.com.

About NTUC LearningHub

NTUC LearningHub is the leading Continuing Education and Training provider in Singapore which aims to transform the lifelong employability of working people. Since our corporatisation in 2004, we have been working with employers and individual learners to provide learning solutions in areas such as Infocomm Technology, Generative AI & Cloud, Healthcare, Retail & Food Services, Employability & Literacy, Business Excellence, Workplace Safety & Health, Security, Human Resources & Coaching and Foreign Workers Training.

To date, NTUC LearningHub has helped over 34,000 organisations and achieved more than 3.2 million training places across more than 1,000 courses with a pool of about 1,000 certified trainers. As a Total Learning Solutions provider to organisations, we also forge partnerships to offer a wide range of relevant end-to-end training. Besides in-person training, we also offer instructor-led virtual live classes (VLCs) and asynchronous online learning. The NTUC LearningHub Learning eXperience Platform (LXP)—a one-stop online learning platform—offers timely, bite-sized and quality content for learners to upskill anytime and anywhere. Beyond learning, LXP also serves as a platform for jobs and skills development for both workers and companies.

For more information, visit www.ntuclearninghub.com.

BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — We are now at a pivotal moment: the fusion of AI and communications is no longer the future, but the present.

This revolution, featuring AI, is fundamentally reshaping mobile communications ecosystems, from terminals and networks to the very services they deliver. As we advance toward future network, the core network must evolve into an intelligent hub and value creator for the future development of networks.

With this trend, Huawei proposes a new cloud core network vision: an intelligent system that unifies Service Intelligence and Network Intelligence. This framework is not an incremental upgrade. It is a strategic rebuild of core services like home broadband, voice, and data, allowing operators to leap forward in user experience and reinvent their business models.

Through NE embedded with AI capability, the core network supports efficient, stable operations while enabling precise service recognition and dynamic policy control. This foundational layer fuels advanced Service Intelligence at the upper layer, creating a responsive, intelligent ecosystem.

The outcome? A decisive shift from merely providing connectivity to delivering adaptive, predictive intelligence-as-a-service. With intelligence at the core, the communications network will evolve to be the strategic hub for future growth, transforming the communications network into an innovation platform that guarantees extraordinary digital experiences and accelerates AI-driven breakthroughs across industries.

The future is intelligent, and it is connected at the core.

We look forward to seeing you at MWC Barcelona 2026. Let’s explore the next frontier of networks, find new ways to add value, and build the blueprint for sustainable growth together.