Dongguan, China – Huawei Technologies announced significant strides in technology development during its three-day developer conference, underscoring achievements in operating systems and artificial intelligence that rival or surpass those of Western counterparts.
Richard Yu, Chairman of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group, emphasized the rapid evolution of HarmonyOS, Huawei’s proprietary operating system now deployed on over 900 million devices. Yu highlighted that Huawei achieved in a decade what took European and American counterparts over 30 years to develop in terms of core operating system technology.
“Harmony has made major breakthroughs. You can say in 10 years we’ve achieved what it took our European and American counterparts more than 30 years to do, in terms of building the core technology of an independent operating system,” Yu stated.
HarmonyOS was launched in 2019 in response to U.S. restrictions on Huawei’s access to Google’s Android OS, which previously powered its smartphones.
Huawei’s Ascend AI infrastructure, noted as China’s most powerful, has also made significant strides, becoming the second most widely used AI infrastructure globally after Nvidia, which dominates the AI chip market.
“Operating systems and other software have traditionally been dominated by Europe and the United States, but the era of the internet of things has provided Huawei an opportunity to surpass them,” Yu remarked.
Huawei’s smartphone business has seen a resurgence, particularly with the launch of the Mate 60 featuring an improved domestically-produced chip. Sales of HarmonyOS-equipped smartphones surged 68% in the first five months of the year, Yu added.
According to research firm Counterpoint, in the first quarter of 2024, HarmonyOS surpassed Apple’s iOS to become China’s second best-selling mobile operating system with a 17% market share, trailing only Android.
Huawei’s advancements underscore its commitment to innovation amid geopolitical challenges, positioning itself as a formidable player in global technology markets.
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