As AI reshapes global network security landscape, the company says its new platform marks a step-change in how telecom operators and enterprises defend against rapidly evolving threats, offering what Huawei describes as “AI defence against AI attacks”.
AI transforming both attack and defence
According to Huawei, the growing use of AI by cybercriminals has transformed the threat landscape. The number of new malware programmes observed globally now exceeds 100 million per year, with four new malicious files detected every second. By 2025, the average number of weekly attacks per organisation is expected to have increased by 1.65 times compared with 2022.
“The AI era is bringing unprecedented speed and complexity to the cyber threat environment,” Huawei said. “Security risks are now business risks.”
The company argues that operators are ideally positioned to take the lead in the expanding global cybersecurity market, valued at more than US$200 billion by 2030. Over 300 operators have already launched security services, and Huawei believes this trend will accelerate as AI transforms both network performance and vulnerability.
Defence in seconds
A key highlight of the Xinghe AI Network Security portfolio is its ability to deliver near-instant defence against attacks. Huawei’s coordinated use of Anti-DDoS systems and AI-enabled routers allows it to detect and mitigate distributed denial-of-service threats within seconds, protecting customer operations from disruption.
The company’s Flash-DDoS Defense Solution, for instance, has been designed to respond to the new generation of “short-duration, high-frequency” DDoS events. In recent years, peak traffic for some attacks has reached 1Tbps within just 10 seconds, while more than 77% of attacks in 2024 lasted less than five minutes, too brief for traditional minute-level defences to respond.
Huawei has moved DDoS detection to its AI-powered NetEngine 800 series, which perform real-time traffic inspection and anomaly detection. Through continuous AI learning on IP packet rate, length and micro-burst behaviour, the system can identify abnormal traffic patterns within seconds.
In deployment, the Flash-DDoS system detected over 2,500 attacks in four weeks at one operator’s data-centre node, including nearly 2,000 under two minutes that conventional systems missed, ensuring uninterrupted network stability.
Security as a business driver
Huawei is also positioning security not only as protection, but as a new source of operator revenue. The company’s Flash-DDoS Defence Solution supports multi-tenant security services, which Huawei says can raise operator ARPU by more than 16%.
Its Secure SD-WAN product integrates SD-WAN, SRv6, 5G access and built-in security into a single device, helping operators reduce total cost of ownership and boost private-line.
These offerings form part of a broader push by Huawei to make “Security as a Service” a mainstream revenue model for carriers, combining network connectivity with embedded intelligence and protection.
AI at the network edge of defence
At the access level, Huawei has embedded AI security algorithms directly to deliver millisecond-level inference on new or unknown threats. Traditional, signature-based detection has struggled to keep pace with the speed and variety of modern malware, but Huawei’s approach integrates an Emulator microkernel unpacking engine with AI-driven behavioural analysis.
The emulator simulates full operating-system and memory environments, restoring encrypted or obfuscated malware samples to reveal their true intent. Combined with AI-based classification, Huawei says the system achieves 95% detection accuracy for unknown threats and over 90% recognition of phishing sites.
These capabilities, Huawei says, will help operators expand their enterprise security offerings and increase revenue from value-added services.
AI-ready resilience
As the pace of digital transformation accelerates across industries, Huawei argues that the link between network reliability and cyber resilience has never been stronger. “Defence within seconds is becoming the new benchmark for network operators,” the company said.
By uniting AI-driven automation, high-performance routing and multi-tenant service models, Huawei’s Xinghe AI Network Security solution positions telecom operators at the forefront of a security market now as critical to business continuity as connectivity itself.
