Millennial Heritage Meets F5G-A FTTM: Wuliangye's Dawn of Smart Brewing

Along the banks of the Yangtze River in Yibin, Sichuan, the fragrance of liquor has lingered for millennia. In the quiet stillness of pottery jars, base wine rests, awaiting the refinement of time. Yet behind this seemingly traditional process, a digital revolution powered by optical technologies is quietly unfolding.

As a pioneer in China's liquor industry, Wuliangye has long embraced innovation-driven growth, weaving modern technologies into the fabric of its ancient brewing craft. Today, Wuliangye, in partnership with Huawei, has introduced the F5G-A FTTM solution—creating a seamless "information highway" across its factories. This breakthrough strengthens data integration, laying the foundation for a truly smart factory and accelerating the digital and intelligent transformation of the liquor industry.

In-depth transformation calls for urgent network upgrades

The liquor industry is undergoing a new round of structural adjustment. Deep integration of emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and artificial intelligence (AI) with traditional brewing has become an inevitable trend. Intelligent brewing is no longer a vision but a necessity. Leading Chinese liquor enterprises, represented by Wuliangye, are not only preserving centuries-old brewing traditions but also driving high-quality industry development through technological innovation. This progress accelerates digital and intelligent transformation and reshapes thousand-year-old techniques for the modern era.

At Wuliangye, digital and intelligent applications are embedded across the entire value chain, enabling seamless operations from field to table. For instance, during raw material cultivation, IoT sensors automatically collect data on soil moisture, climate conditions, and crop growth. AI models then analyze this information to dynamically optimize planting strategies, offering precise farming guidance and improving raw material quality at the source.

Yet, while digital transformation enhances efficiency and product quality, Wuliangye faces pressing challenges at the network infrastructure level.

First, legacy networks operate in silos, with multiple systems running independently. This results in inefficient information-sharing, high management complexity, and limited collaboration across departments—hindering the seamless interconnection required for digital transformation.

Second, in terms of device access and environmental resilience, the rapid expansion of IoT devices demands real-time, stable access for massive terminals. Traditional network architectures lack scalability and struggle in harsh brewing environments characterized by high temperature and humidity, where devices are prone to faults and cannot ensure long-term reliability.

Third, the wine storage area—a core asset hub—lacks adequate security. Conventional security measures provide limited coverage and slow response, failing to deliver comprehensive monitoring or intelligent alerts for risks involving personnel, materials, and environmental factors. Therefore, a more advanced, systematic security framework is urgently needed to safeguard enterprise assets.

Embracing the F5G-A FTTM solution to build next-generation infrastructure

Confronted with multiple challenges in network infrastructure, Wuliangye chose the F5G-A FTTM solution as the backbone of its smart factory construction. This solution stands out for its technological maturity, flexible deployment, simple O&M, as well as its superior security, reliability, and scalability.

Simplified architecture: Unlike traditional three-layer architecture which is composed of access, aggregation, and core layers, the F5G-A FTTM solution adopts a streamlined two-layer design—core and access. Optical fibers are routed directly into workshops without the need for ELV rooms, cutting cabling by 80%. This reduces reliance on ELV facilities and power supply, significantly enhancing reliability and maintainability while enabling more flexible deployment and more efficient O&M.

High bandwidth: This solution uses optical fibers as the transmission medium, offering high bandwidth, strong scalability, and long-distance transmission. It supports smooth evolution from 10G PON to 50G PON on facility networks, implementing 50G to the room and 10G to Wi-Fi. In addition, its anti-interference, anti-corrosion, and vibration sensing features are especially suitable for the special environment of liquor production, truly achieving "one fiber for multiple networks and one network for multiple purposes."

Enhanced security: This solution provides link-level protection. If an active fiber is disrupted, services switch instantly to a standby route with zero interruption. This ensures service continuity. In addition, hard-isolated slices allow multiple services to run on the same network without interference, greatly improving security. The solution also introduces the industry's first stackable OLT, with PON ports supporting dual-fed and selective receiving. The result is an impressive reliability rate of 99.999%.

Moreover, the F5G-A FTTM solution features ultra-low latency and outstanding energy savings. It meets smart factories' demand for real-time, seamless data transmission across diverse processes, while also supporting sustainability goals. By replacing access switches with passive optical splitters, it reduces energy consumption by 30%–40%.

Enabling smart campus construction for digital transformation

Wuliangye is now at a critical stage in its digital and intelligent transformation, spanning production, management, supply chain, and marketing. In this context, the F5G-A FTTM solution empowers core scenarios—from office and production to security and traffic management. By breaking down data silos, it paves the way for smarter, more connected campus development.

In office scenarios, the in-depth application of this solution has achieved unified management of wired and wireless systems, integrating previously fragmented resources into a streamlined, efficient network. This improvement not only enhances the office experience but also reshapes O&M practices. Faults can be located and rectified within minutes, enabling one-person O&M across the entire network and significantly lowering deployment and maintenance costs.

In the production phase, this solution enables real-time monitoring of key brewing processes such as steaming, fermentation, and distillation. It also provides visibility across the entire production chain, from raw material warehousing and brewing to base wine storage, packaging, and delivery. This ensures product quality remains tightly controlled. The solution is particularly valuable in traditional brewing workshops, where high temperatures and humidity pose serious challenges to device stability.

For campus security, Wuliangye leverages optical fiber vibration sensing and video security to achieve all-weather monitoring without blind spots. Industrial-grade optical terminals deployed outdoors deliver high reliability and stability with minimal fault rates. This ensures the security system remains continuously online, strengthening protection for critical areas like wine warehouses.

In terms of traffic management, with more than 30,000 vehicles on campus, traffic congestion has been a persistent issue. By deploying a holographic intersection system powered by the F5G-A FTTM solution, Wuliangye integrates multi-dimensional sensing with AI analysis to enable seamless collaboration among people, vehicles, and roads. This has improved traffic efficiency by over 30%. The simplified network design also reduces pipe space requirements by more than 70%, while dual redundancy mechanisms ensure stable and reliable traffic management.

Ultimately, the implementation of the F5G-A FTTM solution represents more than just a technological upgrade—it establishes a robust foundation for Wuliangye's digital and intelligent transformation. By creating a high-speed, stable, and secure digital infrastructure, the company is driving convergence across office, production, security, and transportation scenarios, thereby accelerating the construction of a truly smart campus.

Looking ahead, Wuliangye will continue to strengthen its cooperation with Huawei to promote the integrated application of digital technologies such as F5G-A across the entire brewing process. By combining traditional craftsmanship with intelligent brewing, the company aims to safeguard product quality while powering enterprise growth with innovation. This partnership not only supports Wuliangye's transformation, but also sets a benchmark for digital transformation in China's liquor industry, driving high-quality development across the sector.