Huawei reveals the next era of mobile: meet the Intelligent Phone

At CES® 2017, nearly 3,000 people attended Huawei Consumer Business Group’s keynote where CEO Richard Yu shared Huawei’s vision of the next frontier in mobile: The Intelligent Phone, an AI-powered device. Yu’s address reinforced Huawei’s commitment to fueling innovation and collaborating with leading partners, to transform the way people experience the world.

Mr. Yu also revealed that the acclaimed Huawei Mate 9 will be available in the U.S. featuring advances at the forefront of hardware and software innovation, the Mate 9 Pro and the Porsche Design Mate 9 will also be Huawei’s first Google Daydream-ready smartphones.

Fueling Innovation with Passion

Over the past five years, Huawei has become one of the top three global smartphone brands. During the keynote, Mr. Yu pointed to the three pillars the Huawei brand – passion, collective wisdom and meaningful innovation – to explain the company’s success. In 2016, Huawei shipped more than 139 million smartphones, a 29 percent increase over 2015. According to IPSOS, Its global brand awareness has also seen steady growth, rising from 76% to 81%, with a 66.7% and 100% increase in overseas user consideration and preference.

Through its continued investment in R&D, which surpassed $38 billion over the last 10 years, Huawei will drive the next era of innovation to inspire and empower mankind. As part of this strategy, Huawei will leverage the collective wisdom of the world’s brightest minds, both within and outside the company, to help shape the next era of consumer technology. Most recently, Huawei opened the new Max Berek Innovation Lab with Leica, deepening its strategic partnership with the world leader in photography and imaging.

Introducing the Intelligent phone for the Intelligent World

As the world demands to be digitally and seamlessly connected, Huawei is paving the way to create transformative experiences that will ultimately bring the Intelligent phone to life. Mr. Yu pointed to a new period of evolution ahead of us – initially the PC gave us a portal to access information; the Internet followed, which let us share information; today we live in an existence where everything is connected. Mr. Yu calls this an intelligent world where devices are constantly sensing and gathering data about our environments. 

To thrive in this intelligent world, the advent of artificial intelligence integrated into today’s smartphones offers us a significant leap forward and brings us one step closer to the next phase in mobile: the Intelligent Phone. The AI-powered Intelligent Phone will be able to anticipate our needs with new functionality that will truly match the way we think and feel.

In order to bring the Intelligent Phone to life, Mr. Yu discussed the design needs of this dynamic, new device which will emulate the human capacity to interact with and understand the world around it. For example, the Intelligent Phone will need advanced computer vision to see and understand its surroundings. It will need more intelligent and developed microphones through which to hear and identify different sounds. It will require advances in power and battery life to process vast amounts of information.

To accelerate the development of the Intelligent Phone, Huawei is working to further develop its sensor technology, machine learning, data management and chipset. By embracing these new advances, Huawei believes the Intelligent Phone will unify digital and human intelligence to make our lives better.

Mr. Yu continued, “Currently people connect with the digital world using their smartphones. In the future, the Intelligent Phone will change all of this. The Intelligent phone will be an extension of who we are – an indispensable part of our lives that uses artificial intelligence to adapt to our needs, allowing us to seamlessly interact with the real and digital worlds.”

Collaborating with Industry Leaders

Today Huawei is working in close partnership with some of the most exciting and innovative companies. As part of Mr. Yu’s keynote, he unveiled landmark partnerships with Amazon and Google as collaborations that will accelerate the development of new, innovative technologies and experiences.

Mr. Yu also revealed that the Huawei Mate 9 will be available in the U.S. market and will be Huawei’s first smartphone to come with voice-interactive app, Amazon Alexa.

Steve Rabuchin, Vice President of Amazon Alexa, introduced the Mate 9 with Alexa: “With Amazon Alexa on Huawei’s Mate 9, customers can easily perform everyday tasks while on the go – using just their voice. This includes controlling their smart home, checking the news, requesting a ride from services like Uber, and more.”

The Huawei Mate 9 Pro and Huawei Porsche Design Mate 9 are Huawei’s first Google Daydream-ready devices for users to explore immersive virtual reality content and experiences. According to Amit Singh, Vice President of Business and Operations for Google’s Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality team, in 2017, in addition to bringing high quality VR on Huawei devices through Daydream, Google and Huawei will work together to offer high quality smartphone AR on Huawei devices through Project Tango’s motion tracking, area learning and depth perception technologies.

These partnerships, and Huawei’s expansive ecosystem of global partners, are strategic collaborations that will lead to richer, more rewarding integration over time to help shape the next era of consumer technology.

“Today our focus is to bridge innovation and technology, create an elite ecosystem of industry visionaries and offer products that significantly enhance the way people connect with one another,” said Richard Yu, CEO, Huawei Consumer Business Group. “As we look to the future, we’re at the threshold of an exciting new era where we’re breaking through barriers to improve the way we interact with the world. The introduction of the Intelligent Phone is the next evolution in mobile that will provide intelligence to every aspect of our lives, enriching the way we experience the world around us.”