Huawei, the Chinese telecom gear maker and smartphone handset manufacturer is expecting the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) market to reach $380 billion by 2025 of which 90% will come from the enterprise market. "Naturally, we believe that industry applications will be key to the success of AI over the next decade," William Xu, Director of the Board and Chief Strategy Marketing Officer, said in his keynote address on the second day of the Huawei Connect 2018. Yesterday, at the same event, Huawei unveiled two new AI chips for data centres and smart devices. It's worth noting that Huawei is one of the largest players who's betting big on AI.
The offline also added that Huawei plans to support one million AI developers and partners over three years. "Helping industries go digital is not something that any company can do on its own. To effectively go digital, industries and industry organizations need to work together," he said.
Elaborating the company's strategy, Xu said that Huawei led the establishment of a platform that helps bring together industry organisations from across the globe, as reported by IANS. "This GIO platform aims to facilitate communication and collaboration between industry organisations, with the ultimate goal of collectively helping industries go digital faster.
"Huawei's vision and mission is to bring digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world," he said. Xu said that by creating a synergy between platforms, AI, and the ecosystem, "we are doing what we can to speed up the arrival of the intelligent world".
Stressing the use of the power of technology and relying on one's own actions, he said that industry insight would help make many breakthroughs in the AI industry. "Human expertise and experience are invaluable, and we should translate these into AI skills," he said, adding that while creating value, AI systems generate additional data that can be used to train them and make them smarter.
Huawei is incorporating AI with more and more of its products and solutions, he said, describing how the company is using AI in airports. "By adopting AI and modernising its infrastructure, the Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport every day, with more than 120,000 passengers travelling through, no longer needs to use Gantt charts to manually arrange flight schedules.
"AI automates this process. Now, about 80% flights use jet bridges instead of remote staircases. In this project, we also used facial recognition technology for more smooth customs clearance. This has reduced passenger wait times by 15 per cent," he said.
Currently, there are over 1,000 flight departures and arrivals at the Shenzhen airport. Giving another example that combines AI with the transportation industry, he said that Shenzhen has the highest vehicle density in China, with 510 vehicles on the road per kilometre.
"In June 2018, the Shenzhen Traffic Police chose Huawei Cloud to manage traffic lights in the district. They incorporated AI technology at nine intersections in Bantian. With this solution, traffic light control rules are adjusted in real time based on traffic conditions.
"This means traffic lights are getting smarter. In the past, drivers counted down the time until the light changed. Now, traffic lights count cars and then change themselves. The results are incredible," he said.
Xu asserted that Huawei would continue to expand its expertise in AI and maintain technological leadership. "Huawei is committed to fairness, collaboration, and shared success. We have forged solid relationships with our ecosystem partners, and we are working together to build a thriving AI ecosystem," he said.
