At Huawei’s three-day conference for the global ICT ecosystem, Huawei Connect, which was held in Shanghai, themed “Shape the Cloud,” Ken Hu, Huawei’s Rotating CEO, explained that the company aims to position itself as the enabler and driver of an intelligent world to become a preferred partner that enables digital and cloud transformation, while actively contributing to the cloud ecosystem through openness, collaboration, and shared success.
“Over the next five to ten years,” Ken Hu said, “we will see all kinds of smart devices that automatically adapt to various use scenarios. All people and all things will have the ability to sense their surroundings, and devices will serve as entry points to the intelligent world. Optical and wireless networks will provide ubiquitous, ultra-broadband connections. In the meantime, interconnected computers spread across the planet will aggregate vast amounts of data, forming a ‘digital brain’ in the cloud. This digital brain will evolve in real time, and it will never age, providing intelligence that can be called upon at any time by people and machines via high-speed connections and devices.”
Huawei wants to be at the centre of that digital brain by working with enterprises around their specific needs. The firm isn’t going to release a handful of clouds on its own; but as an ecosystem enabler helping its customers build all manner of clouds.
Enterprises that were born in the cloud led the development of the first cloud era, disrupting industries around the world. Ken Hu believes that the next ten years will be the era of Cloud 2.0, marking the rise of countless industry clouds.
By 2025, Huawei predicts that all enterprise IT solutions will be cloudified, and more than 85% of enterprise applications will be cloud-based. Every company will integrate its core business with the cloud, and will be on the look-out for the cloud solutions that suit them best. Ken Hu shared some of Huawei’s own experience with cloudification, emphasizing that it’s important to generate value from the cloud, and laid out three measures that can help companies do just that.
According to Ken Hu it’s vital for enterprises to change their mindsets around the role of ICT: They should start treating ICT as a production system instead of a support system, and proactively use technology to redesign their production processes. Second, enterprises should rethink talent, and equip their employees with basic ICT knowledge, particularly as it applies to cloud technology. Third, enterprises should think big and act small, making headway with tactical, gradual improvements that build lasting confidence in new technology and the success it brings.
“Cloud is changing everything,” Ken Hu went on to say. “We view change as a process of rebirth. For any business in the Cloud 2.0 era, change brings hope. And through action, we can create the future.”
Huawei will focus on four key technologies (Cloud, Big Data, Software Defined Networking [SDN], and IoT), and launch eight flagship solutions for its cloud storage, cloud services, and SDN controllers. These solutions are designed to enable the digital agenda of customers across nine sectors, including government and public utilities, finance, telecom, energy, and media.
