Huawei Cloud accelerating intelligence and digitalization in Central Asia through systematic innovation - INTERVIEW with Alan Qi

A three-day Huawei Tech Carnival and Partner Summit was held in Baku on May 13-15. A number of forums and events took place within the framework of the summit. Huawei Cloud TechWave Summit was also one of these events within Tech Carnival. During this summit, Alan Qi, President of Huawei Cloud Middle East & Central Asia answered questions about the activities of the company, the contribution of holding the event in Baku to Azerbaijan and Huawei Cloud, the projects implemented by the company in the Middle East and Central Asia and other topics in an interview with Report:

- "Huawei Cloud TechWave Summit" was held in Baku, which greatly contributes to our wide awareness of the latest technological innovations in the region. What was the purpose of holding such an event in Baku and what are Huawei Cloud's expectations from this event?

- Digital growth in Central Asia is speeding up dramatically and several Central Asia countries have launched government-led initiatives to promote the development of cloud computing and digital transformation. Holding this event in Baku gives us the opportunity to serve as a platform for collaboration and sharing where both government and enterprises can dive deep into systematic innovation on our latest technologies, solutions, and best practices in the region, and position Huawei Cloud to be the preferred cloud for intelligent upgrade for Azerbaijan.

- What can this event contribute to Azerbaijani companies or how can Azerbaijani companies benefit from this summit?

- Digital growth in Central Asia is speeding up dramatically and several Central Asia countries have launched government-led initiatives to promote the development of cloud computing and digital transformation. As we know, Azerbaijan is heading towards becoming a Digital Nation and that is structured around three fundamental pillars: Digital Government, Digital Society, and Digital Business to achieve advanced digitalized public services, digital economy, and a tech-savvy society.

Holding such a big event in Azerbaijan is such a big opportunity for us to showcase our innovative cloud technology to the country and to the region, especially to help Azerbaijani companies leverage cloud to unlock new levels of efficiency, innovation, and competitiveness. In 2023, Huawei Cloud reached a global revenue of CNY55.3 billion and our public cloud grows 110% in global regions outside China. Our own success makes us confident that we are here to be your partner on this digital journey. This is how we do it:

1. Continuous innovation

Huawei has made substantial investments in R&D, particularly in cloud technology, positioning itself as a leading global cloud service provider. Through its KooVerse infrastructure, Huawei Cloud offers comprehensive services across storage, computing, networking, and security, with a wide global reach. Moreover, Huawei Cloud is driving AI development with its Pangu models and ModelArts platform, fostering partnerships and use cases across various industries. Additionally, Huawei Cloud provides solutions like GaussDB and data-AI convergence tools to help businesses leverage their data for informed decision-making and innovation.

2. Industry specific expertise

Huawei Cloud leverages its extensive expertise and successful implementations across various sectors to offer comprehensive cloud solutions. With a track record of serving governments, financial institutions, carriers, and other top players worldwide, Huawei Cloud provides access to global best practices. In the Middle East & Central Asia, Huawei Cloud serves over 600 customers, offering flexible solutions ranging from public to on-premises and hybrid cloud deployments through its Huawei Cloud Stack.

3. A thriving digital ecosystem in the region

Huawei Cloud is dedicated to establishing the Middle East and Central Asia as a hub for data-AI convergence, leveraging the region's talent and business potential. Through partnerships with leading companies, Huawei Cloud offers a comprehensive technology ecosystem, spanning AI, big data, database solutions, consulting, talent development, professional services, and industry collaboration. By driving innovation, Huawei Cloud aims to elevate local businesses to prominence in the digital landscape.

- Do you think that holding the event in Baku will increase the interest of Azerbaijani companies in Huawei Cloud products?

Yes I do. Globally, Huawei Cloud operates in 170+ countries and regions, with 100+ data centers, and millions of servers, offering 240+ cloud services and has 2800 CDN nodes worldwide. I believe Huawei Cloud can bring value to Azerbaijani companies through our expertise, because we are always committed to help governments and enterprises on their digital journey by bringing cutting-edge technologies through systematic innovation. In line with the pillar of Digital Business under the journey towards becoming a Digital Nation, Huawei Cloud is best positioned to help organizations in Azerbaijan especially SME to achieve digitalization, benefiting from Huawei’s more than 30 years of technology accumulation. Huawei Cloud has inherited the three precepts of Huawei's R&D system: remaining focused in innovation efforts, confident investment into the future, and customer centricity as the guiding point from start to finish. We continues to spare no effort in building up the basic technology layers because even the smallest of improvements contribute to the innovations for the future of Azerbaijani companies. This commitment further solidifies Huawei's longevity with its innovations in the tech able to fully satisfy the profile-specific requirements of customers.

- Currently, the Central Asian region is developing rapidly. The issue of the future development of the Middle Corridor (transport corridor) is on the agenda here. In this regard, "Huawei Cloud" can make a great contribution to that region. Considering this, we would like to know in which countries of this region you have started the implementation of big projects? What is the importance of these projects for "Huawei Cloud"? What new opportunities does the use of "Huawei Cloud" create for the companies of these countries?

- The Middle Corridor is a strategic transportation route that connects Europe with Asia through the countries of Central Asia that aims to enhance trade and connectivity between Europe and Asia by improving transportation infrastructure, including roads, railways, and ports, across Central Asian countries.

Globally, Huawei Cloud operates in 170+ countries and regions. In Middle East & Central Asia, we are serving more than 600 customers, and we are always committed to help government and enterprises on their digital transformation journey.

In Central Asia, The Digital Uzbekistan 2030 Strategy approved by the Uzbekistan government emphasized the need to accelerate the development of digital infrastructure. The establishment of the Uzbekistan government cloud, serving as a national data center, was made a top priority for the government to develop digital infrastructure in next few years. The robust foundation and wide range of capabilities of Huawei Cloud Stack helped Uzbekistan to establish a secure and reliable national government cloud, enhancing the efficiency in the development of e-government portal that provides more than 500 public services to 37 million people in Uzbekistan. As results, various cases with documents can be completed much easier and faster, without unnecessary labor and time.

In the Middle East, Aljasser Group is a well-known manufacturer and leading retailer, specializing in office and home decoration and operating in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. The high probability of performance bottlenecks, complex backup and O&M, insufficient network flexibility and scalability of the on-premises infrastructure were holding back Aljasser's business development. To address these issues, Aljasser migrate their ERP system to Huawei Cloud and achieve 30% increase in transaction processing capacity. The new retail outlets could be quickly launched and accessed anytime and anywhere, accelerating the business expansion in the GCC region.

China Mobile Pakistan (CMPak) is the second-largest carrier in Pakistan with 47 million subscribers. The fast-growing communications market drove CMPak to accelerate their digital transformation. They sought to establish a unified data platform to remove data silos, centralize management, and monetize data. CMPak leveraged Huawei Cloud Stack, which served as a cloud foundation, and advanced services, including DataArts Studio, GaussDB (DWS), and MRS, to establish a unified data platform. The platform helped them break down data silos and optimize operations, and thus, their customer stickiness and customer experience were improved.

- At the end, I would like to know which of the company's products are used more in the Middle East and Central Asia? How do these products help business development in those countries?

- Numerous governments and enterprises have begun integrating AI into practical applications to expedite their digital transformation efforts. Industry insight is recognized as pivotal for future success. In the Middle East and Central Asia, many government entities and enterprises are leading the charge in digital transformation such as the Vision 2030 by Saudi Arabia and 'Digital Nation’ by Azerbaijan. In the context of government, more and more AI-powered Q&A assistant are being deployed to improve experience and increase efficiency in carrying out government services. Pangu AI-powered solutions include government and enterprise question-and-answer assistants and smart city solutions. The government and enterprise Q&A assistant provides multi-language Q&A services based on the Pangu Arabic large model and digital human technology. Meanwhile, the smart city solution completes multi-data analysis through multi-modal large models to assist intelligent operation centers in the fields of cities, electric power, energy, transportation and other fields.

In the energy industry, cloud computing are being utilized for IoT device management to streamline the IT and OT systems, and utilize AI-powered analysis for smarter decision making. In the carrier industry, many enterprises are incorporating cloud strategy to upgrade basic services and create a new revenue growth curve.

- My last question is that what can be the contributions of "Huawei Cloud" in the further development of the Middle Corridor as a global transport sector?

- The Middle Corridor is a strategic transportation route that connects Europe with Asia through the countries of Central Asia that aims to enhance trade and connectivity between Europe and Asia by improving transportation infrastructure, including roads, railways, and ports, across Central Asian countries.

Our Pangu Models 3.0 is a three-layer decoupled, hierarchical architecture of 5+N+X consists of 5 - L0 foundation models, N - L1 industry-tailored models, and X - L2 AI applications. It is a system of pre-trained models that can be quickly adapted to meet scenario-specific needs and address complex challenges across multiple industries. By leveraging large-scale data sets and machine learning algorithms, Pangu 3.0 is set to revolutionize the industrial application of AI in diverse areas such as weather forecasting, drug development, fault identification in trains, and the mining industry.

In the railway context, the railway industry faces significant challenges when it comes to the identification of train faults. Current methods, such as Train Freight Detection Systems (TFDS), rely heavily on manual inspection routines and are labour-intensive, inefficient, and costly. To address these pain points, Huawei’s Pangu Railway Model leverages the power of artificial intelligence to automate the fault identification process, reducing the chances of human error and therefore ensuring safer operations and improved efficiency for railway freight services.

The Pangu Railway Model also uses continuous learning to improve performance. If abnormalities are detected, they can be manually labelled, and added to the model to improve detection performance. Additionally, the Pangu Railway Model supports concurrent detection on distributed servers, significantly reducing the time required for fault detection. Using a two-node solution, the detection process for a train is completed within 8 minutes. The faster detection process ensures timely identification of faults, mitigating risks and enhancing overall railway safety.

With its exceptional accuracy, improved efficiency, and faster detection capabilities, Huawei’s Pangu Railway Model solution is setting new standard for fault identification in the railway sector.