In the just-concluded Huawei conference “Industrial Digital Transformation Conference,” the technology company underscored how a value-driven model for industrial digitalization can help businesses navigate the post-pandemic era.

Huawei believes that all organizations should become digital-first to become competitive in the ever-evolving business landscape. The pandemic, no doubt, accelerated digital transformation. Now, businesses are faced with the challenge of keeping up with technology.

“Going digital is no longer just for internet companies. It is expanding to traditional industries, and from the office to the production floor. We’ll keep innovating in technology and scenario-based solutions to help all industries take advantage of this opportunity,” said Ken Hu, chair, Huawei.

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To support businesses in their innovation journey, Huawei, so far, has built 13 Open Labs around the world. In places like Munich and Dubai, the company is working with almost 900 ecosystem partners to incubate different solutions for industrial scenarios. To date, it has successfully verified more than 60 solutions in areas ranging from smart retail to smart manufacturing. On the technology side, Huawei is innovating in areas like smart campuses, deterministic networks, hyper-integrated data centers, smart clouds, and green energy to lay the foundation for an intelligent future.

Customer-centric

Huawei further stressed the need for putting ideas into reality. After years of practice, Huawei has proposed a value-driven model for industrial digitalization. Huawei maintains that digital transformation should be focused on actual business use and scenarios, which can then be used to create value for customers through continuous improvement.

Peng Zhongyang, board member and President of Enterprise BG, Huawei, highlighted the three basic principles that must be followed during digital transformation.

“First, companies must continue to be customer-centric, which is the starting point of digital transformation,” Zhongyang said. “Secondly, they must seize two key factors: the convergence of technologies and scenarios is the key to digitalization, while cloud is critical to continuous optimization and value creation in the digital era. Thirdly, businesses should focus on customer requirements to build a symbiotic and shared digital ecosystem from three dimensions: scenario exploration, capacity building, and a cooperation model to jointly create new value for industries.”

New challenges and uncertainty will emerge in the post-pandemic era. Huawei will be more open and continue to work with our 30,000 global partners to complement each other’s strengths and help overcome new challenges.

ICT

Huawei said it is committed to working with customers and partners to integrate core business scenarios with information and communications technology and accelerate industrial digitalization and upgrade through scenario-specific, innovative solutions.

In the finance sector, through joint innovation with partners, Huawei has provided NCBA Bank Kenya, the largest commercial bank in the East African sub-region, with a new digital core system. The system provides inclusive financial services for more than 18 million users in Kenya and neighboring countries, empowering the real economy and promoting sustainable social development.

In the transportation sector, Dr. Georgia Ayfantopoulou, research director, Intelligent Infrastructure, Networks, Mobility & Logistics and deputy director Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT) of Center for Research & Technology Hellas (CERTH), took Europe as an example and shared the situation of digital transformation of port construction. European Union (EU) ports offer services to a global maritime fleet (Greece, for example, is ranked first with a share of 17% of the world fleet in 2020). Seaports and the shipping industry are an important nexus of the EU economy but are facing challenges such as structural performance gaps, lack of high-quality infrastructure at ports, and other low-performing services. To address this, the EU has formulated a strategic agenda for the European ports, focusing on maritime infrastructure as part of raising the EU’s global competitiveness.

“The Green Port project is deeply involved in the transformation process of the ports’ ecosystems: the users of the ports together with the port’s authorities, the cities try to solve problems of accessibility, efficiency, operation optimization and environmental impact,” said Ayfantopoulou. “Ports of the future are sustainable, smart, multimodal, and interconnected. Technology solutions from partners like Huawei will contribute to efficiently meeting various challenges.”

Energy sector

In the education sector, Soochow University partnered with Huawei to jointly build a “Cloud-based Soochow University” that is digital and intelligent. With this project, all people, environments, objects, as well as academic and cultural activities on the campus are digitalized and mirrored on the cloud, allowing for digital integrations in teaching, scientific research, and management.

In the energy industry, Gao Kunlun of CIGRE Study Committee and VP of the Global Energy Interconnection Research Institute pointed out that in recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) is gradually being applied in many fields, such as equipment maintenance, power grid operation, and customer service. While this effectively improves the efficiency and benefits of the power grid it also reveals technical limitations. With the development of AI theories and technologies, AI-powered electric power systems are now capable of knowledge learning and independent decision-making optimization in complex environments, playing a crucial part in key services such as autonomous power generation and autonomous scheduling of power grids.