Huawei recently shared its roadmap for the coming years at an event in China. Accordingly, the company announced that it will turn its strategic direction to AI within a decade. This is the first time in nearly 10 years that Huawei, which previously prioritized areas such as cloud computing and 5G technologies, has changed its focus.
Huawei Announces New Strategic Focus on AI
The announcement made by Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s rotating President and Chief Financial Officer, showed the Chinese tech giant’s new ambitions. He said they are ready to make significant investments in artificial intelligence as well as technologies such as computing, cloud and 5G.
He underlined that the tech giant is committed to “building a solid computing backbone for China and another option for the world”. With this statement, Huawei joins other Chinese tech firms such as Alibaba and SoftBank that have said they want to focus more on artificial intelligence.
Huawei’s strategic emphasis on AI comes amid the US-China economic war. Since 2020, the company has been on the US government’s blacklist, unable to buy products from US companies due to security concerns.
It has had to develop its own products, from Qualcomm’s 5G chips to Google’s Android software. It is also possible that Huawei, which does not want to fall behind in the artificial intelligence race, will cooperate with other Chinese companies.
On the other hand, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei recently expressed his admiration for Apple with a surprising approach to competition in the technology world. Expressing his respect for Apple products, the businessman said that they are investigating the reason why the brand’s products are so good.