Huawei recently held its 16th annual Global Analyst Summit under the theme of "Building a Fully Connected, Intelligent World". Huawei was joined by more than 680 industry and financial analysts, key opinion leaders, and media representatives from across a range of industries, including telecoms, Internet, and finance. Together, they discussed how to build a fully connected, intelligent world through continuous innovation.
Ken Hu, Huawei's Deputy Chairman, shared the company's insight into industry trends and strategic determination, saying: "The intelligent world is already here. We can touch it. The ICT industry is currently facing unprecedented development opportunities."
Hu also noted that 5G is being deployed much faster than expected, and 5G device development is matching 5G network development for the first time in history. According to Huawei's forecasts, by 2025, the world will have 2.8 billion 5G users. To support these large numbers of users, Huawei aims to develop simple, powerful, and intelligent networks, to continuously create value for its customers.
The wide adoption of AI is accelerating cloud adoption in enterprises. As part of Huawei's larger market position, Hu explained, they consider cloud competition to actually be AI competition. Hu said, "With our strategic investment in AI, we are confident that we will lead in the race in the new cloud track."
According to William Xu, Director of the Board and President of the Institute of Strategic Research of Huawei, innovation 2.0 is the way forward for the ICT industry today. Xu emphasized how Huawei is moving into an Innovation 2.0 state in which vision-driven theoretical breakthroughs and inventions will contribute towards building a fully connected, intelligent world.
Through its Innovation 2.0 strategy, Huawei will overcome the bottlenecks in theories and basic technologies that have hindered the development of ICT. The company has established the Institute of Strategic Research, headed by Xu, to make Innovation 2.0 a reality.
"In innovation 1.0, we have focused on providing innovative products, technologies, and solutions that meet customer needs," said Xu. "In Innovation 2.0, we aim to steer innovation and drive innovations in theories and basic technologies that can promote social progress."
Separately from HAS, Huawei also announced its business results for the first quarter of 2019. In Q1 of this year, Huawei generated around 26.78 USD billion in revenue, an increase of 39% year-on-year. The company's net profit margin in Q1 2019 was about 8%, slightly higher than the same period last year. In 2018, the company maintained strong business growth with sales revenue rounded off at USD 106 billion, up 19.5% year-on-year; its net profit reached USD 8.7 billion, up 25.1% year-on-year.
Updates from HAS 2019
The Huawei Global Analyst Summit (HAS) saw several announcements that feed into the realization of Innovation 2.0. Huawei officially launched its Atlas AI computing platform, which unlocks supreme computing power to help customers embrace an AI-fueled future. Powered by Huawei’s Ascend series AI processors, the Huawei Atlas AI computing platform offers various product form factors, such as accelerator modules, cards, AI edge stations, and appliances. It provides an all-scenario AI infrastructure solution for the device-edge-cloud, and can be applied to numerous fields from smart cities to the Internet to electrical power systems.
In association with its business partners of VR OpenLab—including NVIDIA, BOE, Cyber Cloud, Letin VR, Skyworth VR, Pico, DPVR, iQIY, and Growlib—Huawei also launched the Dual-G Cloud VE Initiative during the Summit. The initiative will see Huawei iLab and X Labs used as incubation centers to collaborate with content, platform, and terminal service providers, as well as chip and screen vendors, in an aim to promote continuous innovation in the industry while accelerating the large-scale commercial use of Cloud VR.
During the IT Infrastructure Track at HAS, Meng Guangbin, President of Intelligent Storage and Data Management Domain, Huawei’s IT Product Line, announced that Huawei ranked first globally in terms of growth rate of all-flash storage market share in 2018. Committed to serving customers with premium data storage services, Huawei intelligent storage has gained 40% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from the year 2012 to 2018 thanks to its continuous innovation.
In addition, Huawei launched AirEngine, its first Wi-Fi 6 commercial product that builds on the company’s 5G strengths. AirEngine has passed the highest performance verification of the Tolly Group, an international authoritative test organization. Huawei 5G smart antenna and intelligent application acceleration technologies increase the Wi-Fi coverage area by 50 percent, shorten the Wi-Fi network latency to 10 milliseconds, and achieve an optimal mobile experience.
Amongst the partnerships announced during HAS, InterContinental Shenzhen, Shenzhen Telecom, and Huawei has signed a strategic cooperation agreement to create the world’s first 5G smart hotel. By introducing the hotel industry’s first end-to-end 5G network with integrated terminals and cloud applications, the project will enable InterContinental Shenzhen to provide guests with the ultimate innovative luxury experience, and open the door for digital transformation of the entire hotel industry through 5G technology.
At the Summit, Huawei also announced its new brand strategy for IP networking and unveiled four new engine series products for the IP network in the intelligence era. These announcements signify Huawei's relentless efforts to build ubiquitous connectivity, release 100 percent AI computing power by using an ultra-broadband lossless network, and help users march rapidly into a fully connected, intelligent world.
To drive industry innovation and upgrading, Huawei is committed to leading the industry in five areas: Redefining the technical architecture, redefining the product architecture, leading the pace of industry development, setting a new industry direction, and fostering a new industry.
Source: Huawei Press Release