HUAWEI | The race for dominance in Generative AI (GenAI) is heating up, with tech giants from around the world vying for supremacy in this revolutionary arena.
A contribution by Mark Greeven for Forbes US – translated by Flora Lucas
While several American companies like OpenAI, Nvidia, and Google are leading the way, and China has several competitors, such as Baidu and Alibaba, another strong opponent is making significant progress: Huawei. With its recent advances and strategic announcements, the Chinese tech giant has made a solid and comprehensive breakthrough in GenAI.
Business leaders around the world should take inspiration from Huawei’s strategic approach to AI, as it provides valuable lessons for maintaining competitiveness.
- Strategic integration at all levelsHuawei’s holistic approach, encompassing hardware, software and cloud, provides a model for establishing leadership in emerging technologies.
- Collaboration with the ecosystem is another crucial elementbecause partnerships can accelerate AI adoption and innovation, by providing customized solutions for specific industries.
- Furthermore, it is essential to stay one step ahead on geopolitical and regulatory challenges, as they can have a significant impact on AI deployment and market leadership position.
- Finally, the integration of AI into core operational processes is essential to ensure the sustainability of operations, allowing companies to anticipate and shape market trends.
These strategies not only strengthen current operations, but also position companies as leaders in the evolving AI landscape.
The Muscle: Ascend AI’s Computing Power
At the heart of Huawei’s GenAI ambitions is its IT infrastructure Ascend AIwhich has demonstrated its capabilities by training large language models with hundreds of billions of parameters. Huawei’s latest development, the Ascend 910C chip, has already attracted interest from Chinese tech giants, with pre-orders exceeding $2 billion. The company claims that the training efficiency of its AI chip is not only on par with Nvidia’s, but surpasses it, with performance metrics that already eclipse Nvidia’s A100 chip. Nearly 50% of China’s large language models adopt Ascend technology. This computing power provides a key foundation for Huawei’s GenAI efforts, fueling new breakthroughs for the company.
The Brain: Pangu Model 5.0
Huawei’s Pangu Model 5.0 excels in processing text, image, video, and audio tasks, and adapts to different languages and scenarios. Pangu’s applications span diverse industries, including autonomous driving, industrial design, meteorology, and pharmaceuticals. Its ability to revolutionize industrial design by significantly shortening the design process for new vehicles illustrates its transformative potential across industries. For example, the Pangu weather model is the first AI model to surpass traditional numerical forecasting methods in accuracy, delivering global weather forecasts in seconds.
L’âme : HarmonyOS NEXT
HarmonyOS NEXT represents a crucial evolution in Huawei’s quest for an independent, AI-enhanced mobile operating system. By integrating Ascend’s computing prowess and Pangu Model’s capabilities, HarmonyOS NEXT is equipped with AI-driven features such as AI Drawing, AI Removal, and AI Voice Repair. These innovations not only enhance the user experience, but also push the boundaries of accessibility and interaction, making the operating system a core part of Huawei’s GenAI strategy.
Le cloud : Huawei Cloud Services
Huawei Cloud plays a vital role in supporting Huawei’s GenAI ecosystem. To address key challenges in training large language models, such as the “computation wall”, “memory wall”, and “energy efficiency wall”, Huawei launched the elastic memory storage service, which leverages its patented memory pooling technology to overcome these obstacles. With the establishment of large AI computing centers and large AI computing resource pools, Huawei Cloud is consolidating its role as the backbone for GenAI development.
Collaborations within the ecosystem: building the future together
Huawei is building a GenAI ecosystem through its strategic partnerships with industry leaders such as Mianbi Intelligence, Honor, and ByteDance. These collaborations are designed to explore applications of vertical models in various fields, from smart mobile office solutions to innovations in large terminal-cloud collaboration models. The launch of Huatuo Traditional Chinese Medicine Model and Pangu Mining Model, developed in collaboration with Shandong Energy Group, illustrates the industry-specific applications of Huawei’s GenAI technology.
Staying Ahead of the Curve with GenAI
Huawei’s GenAI strategy exemplifies the company’s ambition to lead in this transformative field. Its comprehensive efforts—from fundamental AI computing power, exemplified by the Ascend 910C chip, to innovative applications—position it as a global leader. For business leaders, lessons learned from Huawei’s approach underscore the critical importance of comprehensive innovation, strategic collaboration, and long-term vision to secure a leadership position in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
Also read: Meeting with OpenLab, Huawei’s lab
