YANGON - The global-tech giant Huawei held its annual HUAWEI CONNECT event on September 25 in Shanghai, with this year's highlight of a healthy digital ecosystem that can back the backbone of intelligent societies of the future.
It unveiled a paradigm shift, a noticeable progress in synergistic growth through connectivity, computing, cloud, AI and other assorted applications specific to industries and problems they face.
Of course, powering all that innovation is the next-generation of giant shoulders we will from now stand on is 5G, of which the China-based company is top-tier, if not the penultimate winner, of the race.
According to the IDC Worldwide Semiannual Digital Transformation Spending Guide, Asia Pacific's spending for digital transformation last year was over 380 billion US dollars. Huawei is largely involved in that.
Jay Chen, Vice President of Huawei Asia Pacific, "The synergy of the five tech domains will change all industries - whether it be transportation, finance, or energy - and create new value for our region.
...APAC is home to some of the world's fastest-growing economies, 60 percent of the world's population, and about 50 percent of global internet users. Our region is not only leading the world's digital innovation, but also has a great opportunity to leapfrog with the synergy of these new technologies.``
Across the 3-day-long event, from the HUAWEI CONNECT to the Asia Pacific Ascend Ecosystem (APAC) online forum, Huawei showcased how it had continuously further ecosystem cultivation via its programs such as the APAC Ascend Partner Program that had managed to reach over 100 ISV partners and sign 27 MoUs with governments and its Higher Learning Institutions across numerous nations.
Huawei also vowed that it will keep supplying its partners with new ICT tech, helping both the private and public sectors in terms of reaching their strategic goals.
The Myanmar problem
As the fledgling nation of Myanmar rapidly develops, one of the most pressing matters is to how best utilise the innovations of today, such as the 5G, to actually reach goals before opportunities are inevitably chipped away to other prospective nations.
In the event, journalists hailing from Myanmar had concentrated their fire on whether Myanmar can actually be a part of the 5G wave, how the workforce can better take part in it and of course, the COVID-19 situation.
For the first question, it was answered that while Myanmar is indeed behind in its status as a poorer, developing nation, it holds much potential for leap-frogging as the 5G technology is not reliant on more traditional methods of ICT such as massive installations of fiber cables, even going as far as to say that due to the boons of AI in maximizing efficiency and cutting down costs, starting "fresh" can be even faster than incorporating in onto extant technologies.
In terms of an IT savvy workforce, Huawei had already put things into motion for its partners to maximize gains from its technologies, such as the Huawei ASEAN Academy in Malaysia and AI Academy in Singapore, to provide learning services and train ICT talents.
Huawei now has more than 103 ICT Academies in the region. Jay Chen at the event revealed that the tech company aims to develop at least 200,000 ICT professionals over the next five years in APAC through those programs.
As for the recent surge of COVID-19 cases, especially in its business-hub Yangon, that had hit 9991 positive cases and 198 dead nation wide as of 26 Sept, Huawei had been aiding the Myanmar government consistently. It was highlighted that Huawei assisted technologically to better carry out AI assisted CT Scannings and Huawei telemedicine for Live video streaming, Remote collaboration, Remote diagnosis and Remote protection such as the Telemedicine Video Conference Solution and HUAWEI CLOUD AI assisted diagnosis and treatment system deployed at the Central Institute of Civil Services (Phaung Gyi).
The HUAWEI CLOUD also collaborates with partners to provide online education services for schools and other educational institutions.
The Hua-way forward
Nevertheless, as the world and its nations grapple with the havoc wrought by COVID-19, the importance of global key ICT trendsetters like Huawei is needed more than ever not only to safeguard its population from the rampaging virus but also its economies. The Asia Pacific Region is set to see annual compound growth rate from 2017 to 2022 of 17.4% for their digital investments in the recent years.
Huawei also brought plenty of examples to be observed, the benefits brought on by their range of expertise and technologies for them.
One example was the huge Shanghai traffic logistics system, previously laden with manual systems that caused infamous jams to which Huawei and DHL had already managed to increase operating efficiency by 30 per cent. The Shenzhen airport, one of the earliest smart airports, had managed to smoothen out all operations across the board and ensured that nearly 80 per cent of flights were on time for two years. The metro in the same city also utilized a neural network system to reduce equipment inspection loads by 70 per cent and labour costs by 60 per cent.
