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 business event in Shanghai, Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s rotating chairwoman and chief financial officer, made the news.
Huawei’s All Intelligence approach is created to assist all industries in maximizing fresh strategic opportunities as artificial intelligence gains momentum and its influence on the 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.”
Without going into further detail, she continued, “Our 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 under house arrest in Canada as part of an extradition dispute with the United States, Meng returned to China in September 2021. She and Huawei were accused of committing bank fraud and evading Iranian economic restrictions.
After coming to a deal with the US Department of Justice and finally having her charges dismissed, the executive—who is also the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei—was permitted to go.
Hacker Accusations
On the same day that Huawei’s strategic update was announced, China’s accusations against the United States included a reference to the corporation.
China’s Ministry of State Security accused the United States of hacking Huawei servers over 15 years ago in a statement published on the Chinese social media platform WeChat on Wednesday.
According to the ministry, “the United States intelligence services have conducted surveillance, theft of secrets, and cyberattacks against many countries around the world, including China, in a variety of ways, using its powerful arsenal of cyberattacks.”
It said that the US National Security Agency (NSA), in particular, had “repeatedly conducted platform-based and systematic attacks on China in an attempt to steal China’s important data resources.”
The NSA addressed the charges, whereas Huawei chose not to.
The allegations are particularly noteworthy because US officials have long suspected the firm of eavesdropping on the networks on which its equipment runs, using this suspicion as justification to stifle commerce with the firm. The allegations have been vigorously refuted by Huawei, which maintains that the company is independent of the Chinese government.
The US “entity list,” which limits exports to specific organizations without a US government license, included Huawei in 2019. The US government attempted to cut Huawei off from chip vendors who utilize US technology the year after, expanding on those restrictions.
