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Huawei’s cloud unit banks on booming AI demand with global footprint expansion in Europe and Middle East
- Huawei is expanding cloud services to Egypt in March and will soon open an AI cloud computing centre in Hong Kong, its first outside mainland China
- Cloud computing has become a key source of revenue diversification for the telecoms equipment giant since US sanctions hobbled its smartphone business
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Iris Dengin Barcelona, Spain
The cloud unit of Chinese telecommunications equipment giant Huawei Technologies is wooing overseas industry clients and expanding its global footprint with new data centres, banking on the explosive demand for generative artificial intelligence (AI), despite US sanctions.
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Huawei plans to open a new local cloud service in Egypt next month, adding to its 85 availability zones across 30 regions globally, according to executives at the company’s cloud summit in Barcelona, Spain, on Sunday, ahead of Monday's opening of telecoms industry trade show MWC Barcelona 2024. The Shenzhen-based firm will also soon launch its first AI cloud computing centre in Hong Kong, the company's executives said.
“At Huawei Cloud, AI is a key strategy,” said Jacqueline Shi, president of Huawei Cloud global marketing and sales service. “We’re building a solid cloud foundation for everyone, for every industry, to accelerate intelligence.”
While the popularity of ChatGPT-like services has encouraged many Chinese firms to develop their own large language models (LLMs), Huawei has stressed that its own Pangu AI model will focus on industrial use, which is the core of its AI strategy. Last July, Huawei unveiled the 3.0 version of Pangu. The firm has pushed for the use of its own LLM, the technology behind ChatGPT and similar AI services, in sectors such as coal mining and railways.
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