Huawei and Baidu team up on AI

Huawei and Baidu have announced a wide ranging partnership to develop artificial intelligence (AI) platforms and technology, to internet services and content ecosystems.

The tagline itself might sound a bit ominous, ‘AI that knows you better’, but it is where the industry is heading. More comprehensive artificial intelligence applications which reveal information about you which you didn’t even realise you had given away. Another concern might be held in Silicon Valley; two of the worlds’ most successful latecomers to the technology tsunami teaming up to steal AI fortunes from California.

“The future is all about smart devices that will actively serve us, not just respond to what we tell them to do,” said Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group. “With a strong background in R&D, Huawei will work with Baidu to accelerate innovation in the industry, develop the next generation of smartphones, and provide global consumers with AI that knows you better.”

“It should come as no surprise that Baidu and Huawei are working together, because we have many similarities – technology is embedded in our DNA and we have developed our own technologies in order to grow,” said Robin Li, Baidu CEO.

“The Internet era is evolving into the era of AI. Baidu has been dedicated to the field of AI for a long time. Huawei has a large user base. Together, Baidu and Huawei can do many things which we were not able to do in the past. The Chinese saying ‘let a hundred flowers bloom’ is a good way to describe our cooperation – today we planted the seeds, and I believe soon they will grow into many flowers.”

The plan is to build an open ecosystem using Huawei’s HiAI platform and Baidu Brain, a compendium of the company’s AI assets and services. The open ecosystem will make use of Huawei’s Neural Network Processing Unit (NPU) and Baidu’s PaddlePaddle deep learning framework to democratize the power of AI for developers and accelerate the introduction of new offerings.

First up will be work on voice and image recognition for smart devices, as well as building an augmented reality (AR) ecosystem, to help move along another area which has the potential for major disruption. Such work might be able to help both brands make stronger strides into the international markets.

One area for Huawei which might be a focal point is cracking the US market with its smartphones. Huawei has made solid progress in the developing markets, but reports in recent weeks have seen some positive moves in the US. That said, the Apple and Samsung dominance will be difficult to crack, therefore the team will have to create a solid USP to make waves. AI, AR and VR might be that differentiation the brand needs.

Aside from consumer applications, the promise of productivity gains has seen businesses flock to the likes of Google, IBM and Amazon to cash in on the craze. Huawei has proved it can turn a segment on its head, Ericsson and Nokia will testify to this, so the techies-club in Silicon Valley should be a bit worried about China stealing the AI thunder.