Huawei has joined the group of businesses that want to focus exclusively on AI.
The Chinese IT and telecoms giant unveiled its new strategic direction on Wednesday, stating it would transfer its focus to AI, for the first time in almost ten years. Prior to this, the business spent two decades giving priority to cloud computing and intellectual property, respectively.
At a company event in Shanghai, Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s rotating chairwoman and chief financial officer, made the disclosure.
Huawei’s All Intelligence approach is intended to assist all industries in maximizing novel strategic opportunities as artificial intelligence gains momentum and its influence on industry continues to rise, the firm stated in a statement.
In a speech, Meng declared that Huawei was “committed to building a solid computing backbone for China—and another option for the world.”
She continued, without going into further detail, The ultimate goal is to help meet the diverse AI computing needs of different industries.
Huawei’s choice to prioritize AI comes after a similar move by fellow Chinese tech firm Alibaba (BABA), which was announced earlier this month.
More corporations have joined the bandwagon this year as a result of the excitement surrounding platforms like GPT-4. Other businesses, including Japan’s SoftBank, have long stated an intention to focus more on the rapidly evolving technology.
After nearly three years of house detention in Canada due to a legal dispute over her extradition from the United States, Meng returned to China in September 2021. She and Huawei have faced accusations of bank fraud and circumventing Iranian economic sanctions.
The executive, who is also Ren Zhengfei’s daughter, was permitted to depart after coming to a settlement with the US Department of Justice and finally having her charges dropped.
Meng started serving as the company’s rotating chairperson in April, and her tenure is anticipated to last for six months.
Hacking allegations
The announcement of Huawei’s strategic update came the same day that the company was cited in accusations made by China against the United States.
China’s Ministry of State Security accused the Washington of infiltrating Huawei servers over 15 years ago in a statement published on the Chinese social media platform WeChat on Wednesday.
The United States intelligence services have used their potent arsenal of cyberattacks to spy on, steal secrets from, and launch cyberattacks against several nations worldwide, including China, according to the ministry.
It claimed that various systematic and platform-based attacks on China had been carried out by the US National Security Agency (NSA), in particular, in an effort to steal China’s valuable data resources.
While the NSA did not immediately react to a request for comment made outside of typical US business hours, Huawei declined to address the allegations.
The allegations are particularly noteworthy because US officials have long suspected the firm of eavesdropping on the networks on which its technology runs, using this suspicion as justification to hinder trade with the firm. The allegations have been vigorously refuted by Huawei, which maintains that company is independent of the Chinese government.
2019 saw the inclusion of Huawei on the US “entity list,” which limits exports to a select group of organizations without a US government license. The US government increased these restrictions the next year by attempting to isolate Huawei from chip vendors who utilize US technology.
After introducing a new smartphone that appears to be a technological advance, Huawei has increased tensions between the US and China once more.
Last month, Huawei unveiled the Mate 60 Pro, its most recent flagship cellphone, sparking a US inquiry. The fact that the phone has a 5G chip, according to analysts who have analyzed it, suggests Huawei may have found a means to overcome American export restrictions.
