At Huawei Connect 2024 held in Shanghai from 19th September, Huawei’s Deputy Chairman and Rotating Chairman Eric Xu gave a keynote speech exploring commercial AI adoption across different industries.
AI is becoming the most impactful technology for industries, with Xu stating that from a commercial application standpoint, no other technology has had such a profound impact in such a short amount of time. AI adoption is high across three main functions: product and/or service development, marketing and sales, and service operations. As companies set out on this journey, they hope to quickly harness AI for value creation today while also honing their competitive edge for the future.
Xu stated that advancements in AI are driving intelligent transformation across industries, laying the groundwork for what he termed ‘All Intelligence’. To help its customers achieve business success, Huawei has drawn on its own experiences of intelligent transformation – as well as its experiences of helping other industries become more intelligent – to develop a strategy for working towards intelligent enterprises in the age of AI.
Envisioning the future of enterprises in the age of AI
According to Xu, intelligent enterprises will be characterised by six key features, which Huawei has dubbed “the six A’s”.
Adaptive User Experience focuses on how future enterprises will serve their customers. Intelligent enterprises must identify and understand user behaviour, getting to know their requirements, interests and tastes, then adapting their offering to provide the services that best meet each user's needs.
Auto-Evolving Products will be innate to the age of AI - products will be able to self-learn, iterate continuously, adapt to changes, self-optimize, and self-evolve.
Autonomous Operations will provide a huge boost to efficiency via closed-loop operations for all business flows, from sensing and planning to decision making and execution.
The Augmented Workforce is the future of employee experience and work methodology. If every employee has an intelligent assistant that understands their needs, it will help them complete tasks more efficiently and to a higher standard.
All-Connected Resources is about connecting every part of an enterprise, from assets and employees to customers, partners, and ecosystems. The quality of information is key - digitalization on a deeper and broader scale will generate much-needed data for enterprise intelligence.
AI-Native Infrastructure is made up of two parts: "ICT for Intelligence" and "Intelligence for ICT". ICT infrastructure needs to be built out systematically to keep up with the needs of intelligent applications. On the flip side, AI technology itself will be vital for managing the O&M of future ICT infrastructure, as well as assuring experience.
Huawei’s All Intelligence Strategy addresses seven key initiatives.
Innovative architecture for sustainable computing solutions
Intelligent transformation is a long-term process founded on computing power. Moving forward, sustainable computing power will be the cornerstone of continuous advancements in AI.
Huawei Cloud's upgraded stack for AI: Powering industries with AI
Industries are currently trying to build their own AI computing infrastructure, or even train their own proprietary models - great news for computing solution providers, but not viable in the long term. AI servers, especially AI computing clusters, are different from general-purpose x86 servers in that they need more advanced power supply and cooling systems. As foundation models become larger, demand for AI computing keeps growing, meaning AI servers need to be constantly upgraded. If companies upgrade their own data centers to keep up, they may under-utilize their resources.
Huawei believes companies need to choose the right models for the right scenarios, and use a mix of models to address their pain points and create value.
If a company doesn't have the ability or resources to build their own AI computing infrastructure or train their own foundation model, then cloud services are a more feasible, sustainable option. Huawei Cloud is continuously building up its Ascend Cloud Service to give companies easy access to massive AI computing power. Companies don't need to build or upgrade their own data centers, or operate or maintain AI computing infrastructure.
Harmony Intelligence: Providing an intelligent experience across all scenarios
Huawei has deeply integrated AI technology into HarmonyOS with architecture that maximizes synergy between devices, chips, and cloud. The result is Harmony Intelligence, with AI at its core. It is powered by intelligence at all layers, from the kernel to system apps. It allows for more open ecosystem-wide collaboration, as well as more trustworthy privacy protection and security.
Autonomous Driving Network (ADN): Reshaping network experience and O&M
In the network industry, Huawei was the first to advocate using AI for telecom networks, proposing the concept of an Autonomous Driving Network (ADN) in 2018. Now, Huawei is integrating the Telecom Foundation Model and digital twins into ADN and working with the TM Forum, China Mobile, and other partners to support level-4 high autonomous networks in high-value scenarios.
At the same time, Huawei has started applying ADN to enterprise networks, which will guarantee zero service delays, zero network disruptions, zero-wait service provisioning, and zero security risks.
Autonomous driving solutions: Prioritizing safety and experience, and paving the way for a driverless future
Autonomous driving for vehicles was one of the key focuses of our initial AI investment, because the end goal of autonomous driving is fully unmanned driving – one of the most challenging AI applications out there. Huawei's ADS 3.0 allows for more accurate autonomous driving decisions, more efficient mobility, more human-like driving experience, and greater driving safety.
Jointly building ecosystems and creating a unified developer platform for shared success
Huawei has been developing multiple ecosystems since 2017, including those for Huawei Cloud, Ascend, Kunpeng, and HarmonyOS. The company is committed to investing even more in the next few years into ecosystem development in an effort to guide and drive broader development in the computing and device industries.
Advocating and practising AI for good: Contributing to human, societal, and environmental well-being
Huawei believes that AI should serve people by improving efficiency and quality of life. AI can enable the digital transformation of industries, reshaping production and paving the way towards an intelligent world. AI should be used for good – to create greater value for society. During the design, development, and use of AI technologies, it's crucial to carefully evaluate their potential and long-term impact on society, and take necessary measures to prevent harmful application.
Towards the end of his talk, Xu emphasized, "The age of All Intelligence is here. It is unlocking new opportunities and new challenges for everyone and every enterprise. So let's work together to pave the way for All Intelligence, providing every person with an intelligent personal assistant, helping every company become an intelligent enterprise, and powering every vehicle with autonomous driving."
On Day 1 of the event, Huawei also launched its Amplifying Industrial Digitalization & Intelligence Practice White Paper, 10 major solutions for industrial intelligence crafted alongside partners and 101 case studies from around the world, providing references for industries going through digital and intelligent transformation.
One of the successful cases is Huawei’s work with China Southern Power Grid to accelerate the construction of a digital power grid, which will lead to an intelligent energy consumption ecosystem.
For example, CSG’s Guangdong Power Grid is implementing intelligent transmission line inspections in areas with poor signal. The solution combines 5G with microwave self-networking technologies. Video devices with a built-in automatic microwave alignment module are installed on the power transmission tower, similar to installing a 360° scanning signal receiver and transmitter on the video device. After a peer video device is detected, the optimal signal position is automatically matched to implement self-networking communication. A self-networking aggregation point is set in the 5G coverage area, and then image information of the entire link is backhauled via 5G. Chain networking enables 16 km long-distance communication transmission for a maximum of eight lines. This solves the problem of no communication on some transmission lines and avoids the communication dependence on the leased public network. The solution safeguards the digital transformation of power grids, enabling real-time backhaul of transmission line channel videos in areas without signals and laying a solid foundation for full video monitoring coverage of transmission lines.
David Wang, Huawei's Executive Director of the Board and Chairman of the ICT Infrastructure Managing Board, concludes: “Digital and intelligent transformation is picking up steam in all industries, and this progress is creating huge opportunities for everyone. Together, we will dive deep into industries, bridge the digital chasm, and help more customers quickly go digital and intelligent."
