Huawei is doubling down on its artificial intelligence (AI) offerings in the Asia-Pacific region, undeterred by ongoing US sanctions. The company’s strategy centers around its public cloud services, which have grown by a staggering 20-fold in the region over the past four years.
Telecoms Tech News reported that Jacqueline Shi, President of Global Marketing and Services at Huawei Cloud, announced at a media briefing that Huawei would continue to provide comprehensive AI solutions, including its Ascend Cloud Service, ModelArts AI development platform, and Pangu, a proprietary large language model similar to ChatGPT.
Huawei is already making headway in its AI ambitions. It is collaborating with Thai weather forecasters to implement Pangu LLM and partnering with various sectors, such as finance, to improve efficiency and reduce costs. This AI-focused approach demonstrates Huawei’s commitment to diversifying its revenue streams and attracting more international clients, even as it remains on the US government’s blacklist.
The Asia-Pacific region has emerged as one of Huawei’s largest markets for cloud computing services. It has served as a testing ground for certain cloud products, such as its “serverless database” solution, before being deployed globally. Huawei’s global expansion continues, with recent launches in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Despite facing US sanctions, Huawei has managed to make significant strides in AI. Its self-developed processors and framework allow it to circumvent restrictions on American-origin technologies. In mainland China, Huawei’s Ascend AI chips are now a viable alternative to US-restricted graphics processing units from Nvidia.
As the demand for generative AI services grows across traditional industries, Huawei’s AI-focused strategy positions it well to capitalize on the opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.