Huawei Connect: AI, Compute & Cloud Key Drivers for Vision

At Huawei Connect Shanghai 2024, the tech titan treated its thousands of attendees to a raft of new upgrades to the company’s AI, cloud and compute abilities and how these all filter into the company's announced ‘Digitalized Intelligence’ 2030 strategic vision.

“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,” Eric Xu, Huawei's Deputy Chairman and Rotating Chairman said in the opening keynote. “In this regard, it's crucial to first envision what intelligent enterprises will ultimately look like, and then use that vision as a guide for the strategies and actions that we employ today.”

As part of its Al Intelligence and Amplifying Industrial Digitalization and Intelligence objectives, Huawei updates aim to help enterprises better harness this AI revolution by both tailoring services and aiding the digitalisation efforts that companies need to effectively implement it.

AI Intelligence implementation 

Having years of intelligent transformation experience both internally and helping partners externally, Huawei is keen to implement its knowledge to building products based on what it sees enterprises need for successfully deploying new digital technologies.

Huawei has therefore come up with a roadmap with what makes an intelligent enterprise, characterised by six As.

The first four As are the results of intelligent transformation.

• The first 'A' focuses on Adaptive User Experience for customers.
• The second 'A' is Auto-Evolving Products and their innate product functionality and ability to evolve.
• Third is for Autonomous Operations, from sensing and planning to decision making and execution. 
• The fourth 'AI', meanwhile, is an Augmented Workforce.

The remaining two As are the building blocks of AI.

With its roots in telecommunications, Huawei understands the importance of interconnectedness and networks. 

• Therefore, the fifth ‘A’ is for All-Connected Resources, connecting every part of an enterprise, from assets and employees to customers, partners and ecosystems.
• The last 'A' is AI-Native Infrastructure. There are two aspects to AI-Native Infrastructure, with desires to build ICT infrastructure to keep up with the needs of intelligent applications.

This segued into David Wang, Huawei's Executive Director of the Board and Chairman of the ICT Infrastructure Managing Board, as he stressed how Huawei wants to work with customers and partners to build future-proof infrastructure capable of delivering this.

To this end, Huawei announced a brand new report called the Global Digitalization Index (GDI). Building on the GCI, the GDI factors in new indicators that look at digital infrastructure, including computing, storage, cloud, and green energy. It also quantifies the value of each country's ICT industry and its impact on their national economy.

Highlights of which found that each US$1 investment in ICT results in an US$8.3 return in a country's digital economy.

Understanding such returns, Huawei announced a Amplifying Industrial Digitalization & Intelligence Practice White Paper with 10 major solutions for industrial intelligence, for businesses to understand how to build digitalisation.

“Together, we will also craft new scenario-specific solutions, and create a fertile space for both the economy and society to thrive,” David told the keynote theatre. “Together, let's seize the opportunities presented by this transformation and bring its benefits to all.”

Key announcements 

Yet ambitions are only ideas without the correct backing. Underpinning these digitalisation efforts came a raft of new product solutions that enterprises can use to further build their journey into AI.

Recognising that this vast AI use will bring with it new demands, Huawei announced a focus on a number of key areas: connectivity, storage, computing, cloud and energy.

New announcements, a number of which unveiled by Zang Ping’an, Executive Director of the Board and CEO of Huawei Cloud, therefore came in the form of the launch of cloud to mainframe technology, to facilitate better integration between cloud and computing environments for a centralised view to access their data to optimise their IT operations. 

Although, Huawei’s continued pursuit to help enterprises more widely digitalise is why they are taking continued efforts to make their AI more widely accessible and easier to deploy. 

“We believe that 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,” explains Eric. 

Its own Pangu models have been used in many industries, and experience suggests that a 1-billion-parameter model is enough for scientific computing and prediction scenarios, such as rain forecasts, drug molecule optimisation and technical parameter predictions. 

Following on from AI came the announcement of Pangu Doer, an intelligent assistant powered by the Pangu large model that is set to usher in a new era of intelligent cloud services.  

Designed around a “1+N” architecture, its uses extend to planning, using, maintaining, and optimising the cloud through a series of specialised assistants tailored to key enterprise scenarios. 

Huawei also unveiled its brand-new CANN 8.0, also opening up its openMind application enablement kit. This is in efforts to make the industry ecosystem more dynamic by providing wider access.

And speaking of compute to run this all, also announced was the launch of Huawei's new Atlas 900 SuperCluster. This new AI computing cluster, the latest offering in Huawei's Ascend series of computing products, makes use of a brand-new architecture.

This was followed up in an announcement for enterprises needing to build AI-native cloud infrastructure that matches their requirements. 

Zhang therefore announced the launch of CloudMatrix. Designed to interconnect and pool all resources including CPUs, NPUs, DPUs and memory, CloudMatrix comprises an AI-native cloud infrastructure in which everything can be pooled, peer-to-peer, and composed, providing enterprises with large AI computing power.

Building the base for the future of business

Huawei is proactively addressing the key concerns businesses face as they adapt to the rapidly evolving digital landscape, with an emphasis on the integration of AI, cloud and computing technologies to enhance operational efficiency and foster innovation. 

By focusing on six key areas - Adaptive User Experience, Auto-Evolving Products, Autonomous Operations, Augmented Workforce, All-Connected Resources and AI-Native Infrastructure  - Huawei aims to empower enterprises to navigate their digital transformation journeys effectively and build digital and AI applications that enhance their offerings. 

This comprehensive approach not only addresses immediate business needs but also prepares organisations for future challenges in an increasingly interconnected world.

Such commitment to developing intelligent infrastructure, through collaboration with industry partners and a focus on innovative ICT solutions, is positioning Huawei as a leader in driving the future digital economy.

These innovative solutions and more can be witnessed at this year’s GITEX. From October 14 to 18, Huawei will be a Diamond Sponsor at the 44th GITEX GLOBAL 2024, one of the world's largest technology exhibitions. 

With the theme of "Accelerate Industrial Digitalization and Intelligence", Huawei will launch a series of flagship products and solutions for the global enterprise markets, Reference Architecture for Intelligent Transformation, and rich innovative practices in digital intelligence in the global industry. 

At the same time, Huawei will hold the Huawei Industrial Digital and Intelligent Transformation Summit 2024, dozens of forums, hundreds of talks and keynote speeches, exchanging thoughts with the industry. 

At this exhibition, Huawei's booth is located at B10&B20, Hall 22, Dubai World Trade Center. It covers an area of more than 1400 square metres, with the focus on two themes: " Accelerate Industrial Digitalization and Intelligence" and "Leading Digital and Intelligent Infrastructure". 

They are extending a welcome for all to visit the GITEX Global Huawei exhibition area to experience and join its journey of " Accelerate Industrial Digitalization and Intelligence ".

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