AI-Driven Transformation: Huawei's Blueprint For A Digital And Intelligent Future

At Huawei Connect 2024, Huawei demonstrated its leadership in driving the global AI revolution, reshaping industries, economies, and societies. As a pioneer in digital transformation, Huawei is enabling businesses worldwide to integrate AI-driven infrastructure into their operations.

Two of Huawei’s leading figures, Eric Xu - Deputy Chairman and Rotating Chairman, and David Wang - Executive Director of the Board and Chairman of the ICT Infrastructure Managing Board, presented a unified vision for the future of industrial digitalisation and intelligence. They emphasised how AI is at the heart of this transformation, setting the stage for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Their insights showcased Huawei’s All Intelligence Strategy and its broader mission to drive this revolution by converging digital technologies with intelligent infrastructure, thereby creating countless opportunities for enterprises globally.

The Rapid Rise of AI and Huawei’s Vision for All Intelligence

One such example of Huawei’s digital transformation initiatives can be seen in Kweichow Moutai, one of China’s most prestigious liquor producers. In 2020, Moutai partnered with Huawei to modernise its traditional, labour-intensive production process. Known for producing high-end baijiu, Moutai embraced Huawei’s IoT, AI, and cloud technologies to digitise its supply chain, improve quality control, and monitor real-time conditions during the complex ageing process. By integrating Huawei’s solutions, Moutai has enhanced operational precision and maintained its prized liquor's high quality and tradition.?

Huawei’s journey with artificial intelligence (AI) began in 2018 when it launched its full-stack, all-scenario AI portfolio. In 2021, it introduced Pangu models, designed to help industries accelerate their digital and intelligent transformations. Since then, AI adoption has surged globally, and Huawei is at the forefront of this revolution. AI is now widely recognised as one of the most impactful general-purpose technologies, transforming everything from operations to customer experience.

Xu emphasised that AI is the foundation for Huawei's All Intelligence Strategy, a vision where industries and enterprises can fully leverage AI to transform their business operations, create value, and gain insights that were previously unattainable. McKinsey and Stanford University research shows that AI adoption is already high across industries like telecommunications, manufacturing, finance and public services. This widespread adoption is driving intelligent transformation in every sector. I’ve seen firsthand how AI is reshaping how companies operate, how we interact with AI technology daily, and how powerful and adaptable these technologies have become.

Interestingly, Xu and Wang both focused on the importance of ecosystem development and collaboration as central pillars of Huawei’s strategy to support industries on their AI and digitalisation journeys. Wang pointed out that the rapid pace of digital and intelligent transformation creates immense opportunities but also necessitates that industries embrace innovation and upgrade their infrastructure to realise the benefits. Huawei’s role, he said, is to create future-proof infrastructure that provides industry- and scenario-specific solutions, enabling businesses to capitalise on AI’s full potential. This is a welcome and sensible approach, as enterprises are not starting with a holistic data or technology platform.?

The Future of Intelligent Enterprises: The Six A's

Central to Huawei’s vision for the future of intelligent industries are the Six A’s, a framework introduced by Xu to outline the defining characteristics of future intelligent enterprises:

1. Adaptive User Experience: Future enterprises will perceive and understand customer needs in real time, offering highly personalised experiences tailored to user behaviour, preferences, and environmental changes. This adaptability will require AI-driven systems designed to respond dynamically. For example, AI-powered educational tools will adjust content and difficulty levels based on each student’s learning progress, creating a personalised and more effective educational and learning experience.
2. Auto-Evolving Products: Products will auto-evolve continuously through self-learning and self-optimisation, responding to real-world conditions. This shift from digital to intelligent products represents a significant leap in product development and competitiveness. A prime example is self-driving vehicles, which improve their performance over time by learning from experiences, resulting in safer and more efficient driving.
3. Autonomous Operations: Intelligent enterprises will implement closed-loop autonomous operations, from sensing and planning to decision-making and execution. This will significantly enhance operational efficiency. For example, smart ports will autonomously plan operations and handle logistics, driving efficiency in traditionally manual areas.
4. Augmented Workforce: AI will augment human workers, improving productivity and the overall employee experience. Intelligent assistants will support employees by understanding their needs and helping them complete tasks more efficiently. For example, field engineers could use an AI assistant to quickly access diagnostic information about mobile base stations, including fault location and potential solutions, improving response times and decision-making.
5. All-Connected Resources: AI will link employees, assets, partners, and ecosystems, creating fully connected enterprises that generate valuable data for informed decision-making. High-quality data is the fuel driving AI, and businesses must harness this data to optimise operations and enhance their strategic capabilities.
6. AI-Native Infrastructure: Future enterprises will be built on AI-native infrastructure that supports the needs of intelligent applications. This infrastructure will not only use ICT (information and communications technology) to support AI, but AI will also optimise ICT infrastructure, improving operational efficiency and performance.

Huawei’s vision of AI-native infrastructure and autonomous operations paints an exciting future. Imagine businesses where systems anticipate needs, optimise processes automatically, and seamlessly adapt to market conditions with minimal human intervention. It’s a revolutionary vision of how companies should operate in the next decade.

Huawei’s All Intelligence Strategy: Seven Key Initiatives for Sustainable AI Development?

To support enterprises in building towards this intelligence vision, Huawei has outlined Seven Key Initiatives that offer practical pathways for businesses to harness AI, drive transformation, and sustain long-term innovation.

1. Innovative Architecture for Sustainable Computing Solutions: Huawei is focused on building innovative computing architectures that can be sustained with available resources. Instead of relying solely on individual processors, Huawei is increasing computing power at the system level, developing supernodes and clusters to meet the growing demand for AI computing power.
2. Huawei Cloud’s Upgraded Stack for AI: Huawei Cloud plays a pivotal role in providing AI infrastructure. The upgraded Ascend Cloud Service and ModelArts platform enable businesses to access massive AI computing power on demand, making it easier and offering advanced security protections.
3. An AI Ecosystem for Devices: Through Harmony Intelligence, Huawei maximises synergy between devices, chips, and the cloud to deliver intelligent experiences across multiple scenarios, including smartphones, home automation, and beyond. In addition, its smart assistant, Celia, is evolving into an AI agent capable of more intuitive, multi-modal interactions.
4. Autonomous Driving Networks (ADN): Huawei introduced ADN for telecoms in 2018, using AI to manage to manage networks with high autonomy. Huawei is now extending ADN technology to enterprises, enabling zero-delay service provisioning, zero network disruptions, and simplified network operations.
5. Autonomous Driving Solutions (ADS): Huawei’s ADS 3.0 represents a significant advancement in autonomous driving, enabling vehicles to drive safely in various settings, from urban roads to highways. Huawei plans to continue investing in fusion sensing technologies to reach its goal of fully driverless vehicles.
6. Joint Ecosystem Development: Huawei continues to foster collaboration across industries through its Huawei Cloud, Ascend, Kunpeng, and HarmonyOS ecosystems. Over the next five years, Huawei plans to expand these ecosystems to provide alternatives to global computing and mobile operating systems.
7. AI for Good: Ethical and Sustainable AI: Huawei advocates using AI for good, promoting environmental sustainability, and supporting the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Huawei believes that AI should enhance quality of life while considering long-term societal impact, making ethics a central part of its AI development strategy.

Huawei’s Vision for Industrial Digitalisation

Wang outlined Huawei’s efforts to drive industrial digitalisation, underscoring the importance of system-level innovation in five core areas: connectivity, storage, computing, cloud, and energy. Huawei has identified a four-step approach that countries can follow, where each step builds upon the previous to help industries navigate the digital transformation.

Wang emphasised, however, that Huawei’s commitment to ecosystem development goes beyond technology. Huawei has pledged to invest CNY 1 billion annually in its Kunpeng and Ascend ecosystems, supporting over 1,500 application partners. In addition, Huawei has launched its openMind application enablement kit to accelerate AI-native ecosystems.

Amplifying Industrial Digitalization & Intelligence and the Global Digitalization Index (GDI) launch

At Huawei Connect 2024, Huawei launched its “Amplifying Industrial Digitalization & Intelligence Practice White Paper,” which provides 100 case studies and implementation models for industries looking to embark on digital and intelligent transformation journeys.

Its reference architecture, launched in 2023, has already led to the development of over 200 solutions. Additional digital and intelligent solutions are now available for industries, including public services, transportation, finance, manufacturing, electric power, mining, and oil and gas.?

Huawei also introduced the Global Digitalisation Index (GDI), developed with IDC, to quantify the impact of digital infrastructure investments. Research indicates that every US$1 invested in ICT generates US$8.3 for a country’s digital economy. This underscores the enormous potential of AI-driven solutions.

A Unified Vision for the Future

Reflecting on the keynotes delivered by Eric Xu and David Wang at Huawei Connect 2024, I find Huawei’s unified vision for the future shaped by AI-driven digitalisation both inspiring and forward-thinking. Their commitment to fostering collaboration and ecosystem development underscores Huawei’s role as a critical enabler of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Through strategic investments in computing, AI infrastructure, and cloud solutions, Huawei is paving the way for a future where industries can fully harness the power of AI to drive success, enhance operations, and promote sustainable development. As industries and enterprises increasingly adopt AI, Huawei will continue to support them on their journey toward intelligent transformation.

Global Digitalisation Index (GDI) 2024 https://www.huawei.com/en/gdi