During Gitex Global 2024, global ICT leader Huawei hosted the Industrial Digital and Intelligent Transformation Summit and presented its vision for an intelligent world where there’s an accelerated adoption of industrial digitalization and intelligence, ultimately creating a leap in productivity for the society.
David Shi, vice president of ICT Marketing and Solution Sales at Huawei, delivered a keynote address outlining the company’s vision for building next-generation ICT infrastructure as the foundation for digital and intelligent transformation.
He emphasized the growing importance of this infrastructure in the face of rapid technological advancements, stating: “Now we are in the fourth industrial revolution. I believe everyone has already experienced a lot of tech booms over the past years. But looking forward, we can see that new technologies are emerging even faster.”
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Shi highlighted the widening gap between industry leaders and laggards in digital and AI maturity, referencing a McKinsey report. He also highlighted Huawei’s commitment to ensuring that “no one is left behind” by helping customers leverage new technologies to close this gap. This commitment translates into a focus on accelerating two key areas: the popularization of ICT infrastructure and its monetization. “Only by working closely with our customers and partners can we truly bring intelligence to all industries,” Shi said.
David Shi, vice president of ICT Marketing and Solution Sales at Huawei
Four principles
Four principles guide Huawei’s approach to simplifying ICT infrastructure construction and use: easy to integrate, easy to access, easy to use, and easy to evolve. Here’s how these principles apply in key scenarios:
- Campus: Acknowledging the increasing complexity of campus management, Shi noted that “90 percent of innovations come from campuses”. Huawei’s integrated digital foundation aims to simplify campus management and construction, as demonstrated by China’s Xiamen International Expo Center project, where pre-integration interconnected 26 subsystems and 29 applications. This greatly simplifies system integration and enhances its efficiency.
- WAN: Describing WANs as the “highways in the digital world”, Shi highlighted Huawei’s industry-leading WAN architecture, which leverages IP and optical technologies to reduce costs and improve efficiency. He cited the BoFiNet collaboration, where IP slicing technology achieved a “one network for multiple purposes” approach and a reduction of 30 percent in the total cost of ownership (TCO).
- Data center: Addressing the growing importance and challenges of data centers in the age of AI, Shi explained Huawei’s focus on cloud-network-storage collaboration for secure, efficient, and sustainable infrastructure. The Oman Oil Company project, with its 25 percent TCO reduction through unified data center management, served as a key example.
- SMEs: Shi emphasized Huawei’s commitment to making ICT infrastructure accessible to SMEs through solutions like Huawei eKit products, which simplify installation and maintenance. He noted that the Huawei eKit app reduces network installation time from “six minutes to just two minutes”.
Huawei eKit products
At Gitex Global 2024, Huawei launched over 30 new Huawei eKit products and showcased upgraded scenario-based solutions designed to bolster the competitiveness of Huawei’s distribution partners and accelerate digital transformation for SMEs across various industries.
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The company also underscored its commitment to partner success by highlighting its end-to-end strategic investment in its distribution business, spanning R&D, marketing, sales, supply, and services. This commitment is further reinforced through joint marketing initiatives, comprehensive training programs like the HCSX-distribution professional certification and Golden Seed Plan, and robust after-sales support.
Accelerating monetization
Shi stressed the importance of accelerating monetization by leveraging digital and intelligent technologies for service innovation and value creation. He highlighted the need to converge technology and business and foster a thriving partner ecosystem. Huawei’s “find the right technology for the right scenario” approach, combined with its open reference architecture for intelligent industry transformation, enables the development of tailored solutions in collaboration with partners.
“We collaborate with our partners to better serve our customers, and in doing so, we also help develop more ecosystem partners alongside our customers. This creates a positive cycle, where each party’s success contributes to further growth. We believe that this model of success can be applied across various industries,” explained Shi.
Shi concluded by reiterating Huawei’s commitment to collaboration: “No matter how technologies develop, only by working closely with our customers and partners can we truly bring intelligence to all industries. Huawei is willing to work together with all of you to build digital and intelligent infrastructure, win in the new era, and create a better future.”
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