As being an enabler for the auto industry, Huawei has no same-sized competitor that can combine the cloud service and ICT together for automobiles.
On April 17th, 2019, Huawei’s On-duty Chairman XU Zhijun (徐直军) delivered a speech about Huawei’s strategic plan in the mobility industry at the 18th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition (2019 Auto Shanghai). He claimed that Huawei would never become a vehicle manufacturer but an enabler for the industry with its strengths in ICT (Information and Communication Technology).
It is the first time for Huawei to attend an automobile exhibition event. In 2019 Auto Shanghai, Huawei defined itself as an enabler and carried out the slogan, Bring Digital to Every Vehicle. In his speech, he demonstrated how Huawei would function in the automobile industry.
According to McKinsey’s research, 55% of the total mileage will be generated by electric vehicles (EVs), autonomous-driving vehicles (AVs), and sharing vehicles. The shifting from traditional ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle to EVs and AVs, the industry will be transformed accordingly with intensity.
XU Zhijun stated that intelligent and automated connected vehicles (IACV) would play more roles that they are now. IACVs will become part that constitutes the IoT (Internet of Things). Huawei has been working on ICT and is a major 5G telecommunication service provider worldwide. The IoT has been an important application based on 4G technology and will be on 5G, too.
Huawei will use its strengths to help the automobile industry during the transformation from traditional ICEV to EV and AV. Huawei will develop in-car network and in-car 4G/5G-based telecommunication modules using its strengths in ICT. For automated vehicles, Huawei will provide computational and cloud services. The autonomous driving cloud, Octopus, is dedicated to offering cloud service to train, test, and simulate autonomous driving. MDC (Mobile Data Center) is the in-car computational system and autonomous driving sub-system solution.
The final solution will integrate above-mentioned functions into the terminal ecosystem and combine Huawei’s digital solution with EV and AV. Huawei’s digital solution for automobiles is embedded in its ecosystem. Huawei’s cloud service, which grows rapidly with the growth of its dominance in 5G telecommunication, and cloud computation might not be outstanding comparing to other cloud providers like Alibaba or Tencent, at least from the market share. However, Huawei’s ICT is in an absolute advantage among all possible competitors in China.
The IACV will substantially rely on the telecommunication foundation and the reliance will yield the chance for Huawei to be a strong enabler in the automobile industry. By far, Huawei’s ecosystem seems to be the most complete while it has its own AI chip development, cloud service, cloud computation, ICT, and others.