Huawei eyes backing 1 million AI developers in 3 years

The company hopes to bank on an AI industry that could grow to US$380b by 2025.

Developers might need to rev up their AI skills as Huawei is planning to support a million AI developers and partners for the next three years, said Huawei chief strategy marketing officer William Xu in his keynote speech for Huawei Connect 2018 in Shanghai, China.

This comes on the back of the company’s forecast that enterprises could take up 90% of a US$380b AI industry by 2025, Xu said. He follows the thought of rotating chairman Eric Xu’s previous keynote speech saying that the demand for data scientists and engineers will increase amidst the company's push for its AI strategy.

To ride on a booming industry, Xu introduced Huawei’s process to get industry AI running: firstly, by coming up with scenarios that dictate what AI should do; secondly, by translating human skills into AI; and thirdly, by creating practical value and generating data for training the machines.

Developers are part of Huawei’s ecosystem of partnerships to help them have a solid footing in the AI industry, which includes industry alliances, business alliances, and open source communities. “Managing cooperative relationships with our ecosystem partners is more important than managing Huawei’s own business growth,” the Huawei executive said.

“We believe that growing the industry and enlarging the market is far more important than increasing Huawei’s own share of that market,” Xu added. However, the company has still been aggressive in pushing for its products that target large enterprises and governments.

Huawei’s new products include their own developed AI chips in its Ascend series, the Atlas Intelligent Computing Platforms, and mobile data centres MDC 600 – which is a “more accessible” take on Google’s patented portable data centres.

If you've been wondering whether SBR could work for your company — yes, probably.

A lot of the companies we partner with started as readers. They'd been following our coverage for a while, saw their own customers and competitors in it, and eventually asked the obvious question: could we do something with you? The answer is usually yes. The shape of it depends on what you're trying to do.

The options are broader than most people assume — thought leadership articles, sponsored content, industry summits across Southeast Asia, regional awards programmes, podcasts, and media placements in print and digital. Some partners use one channel; most use a mix. We figure out the right combination by starting with your brief, not with our rate card.

So if the question has been on your mind, here's the easy way to ask it.

We'll tell you honestly whether we can help, and how. It's a better use of everyone's time.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia