Mankind’s entry to the world of tomorrow will be sooner rather than later.
Huawei Deputy Chairman of the Board and Rotating CEO Guo Ping said that man is close to entering an intelligent world, one where all things can sense through devices and connect through networks in a larger scale than what we have today.
“In that world, devices will be the ‘feelers’ for all things to sense, networks will connect all things, and ‘digital brains’ in the cloud will pool huge amounts of data and insight,” Ping said. “With the help of these digital brains, anything that requires mental effort will become more efficient.”
Ping was speaking at the recent third Huawei Asia-Pacific Innovation Day at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where his outlook lined up with the forum’s theme of “Fostering Digital Economy, Exploring Digital Transformation.”
The CEO of the global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider said that an intelligent world isn’t far away from coming to fruition, as the current worldwide digital progress pushes for a wider use of big data and artificial intelligence.
Ping pointed to China’s monetary movement as a potential glimpse into that world, where for the past three years, the country has transitioned from using banknotes and coins to mobile payment.
“In China you can use mobile payments wherever you go. They are accepted in cities and remote villages, and you can buy anything from plane tickets to fruit on the side of the road,” Ping said, adding that in 2016 the fast-rising type of transaction hit $24 trillion.
Mobile payment is not just where China leads globally on the digital front. It also tops other domains, including e-commerce transactions with $3.5 million. Ping added China’s progress in these areas didn’t happen overnight, but is a result of a “long-term, heavy investment in infrastructure.”
The four layers of a country’s digital transformation
IN his speech, Ping presented a revised version of Maslow’s four-layer “Hierarchy of Needs,” which he called “A Country’s Hierarchy of Needs” that leads to digital transformation and, ultimately, digital economy.
The first layer is what China had long focused on: ICT infrastructure, or the foundation of the digital economy. Second is security assurance, for both the physical and the digital, while third is industrial digitization for a supportive environment. The highest layer is digital brain, or intelligent management.
First layer, ICT infrastructure: For the first layer, Ping took the city of Shenzhen, where Huawei is headquartered, as an example. The city covers less than 2,000 square kilometers, but has 36,000-plus base stations that facilitate wireless communication between user equipment and a network. That’s more than 2,000 than what entire Malaysia has.
ICT infrastructure such as that, according to Ping, creates new opportunities, especially for micro, small and medium enterprises. He added that new ICT infrastructure, such as Narrowband-Internet of Things, or NB-IOT, is becoming one of the most powerful new engines behind innovation.
Huawei’s Global Connectivity Index (GCI) tracks a country’s “digital status” through a scoring system that accounts five core technologies: broadband, data centers, cloud services, big data analytics and the IOT. Ping said their research revealed that, when the GCI score of a country reaches 35 over 100, the return of investment for digital infrastructure grows exponentially. “In other words, ICT investment will lead to greater GDP growth.”
Malaysia (46), Thailand (39) and the Philippines (34) are at the development stage based on GCI 2017, while Indonesia (33) and Vietnam (33) are currently on the outside looking in. The United States leads the list of 50 countries with a score of 77.
Second layer, Security assurance: This layer is what Ping called as “necessary for development.” Security assurance concerns both the physical and the digital worlds.
Augustine Chiew, Huawei Enterprise Global public safety expert, presented at the forum a case study of a safe city in Longgang District in Shenzhen.
In the first half of 2017 alone the district reported 20,115 crime cases with a lean police force comprised mostly of unarmed volunteers. Huawei worked with Longgang District government and developed a safe-city solution framework centered on the collection, applications, convergence and aggregation of data.
Data collection involved the installation of more than 7,000 new HD cameras across the district and 34,000 legacy cameras across public spaces. Using license plate and facial-recognition technology, the cameras record around 14.6 million face captures, along with 140,000 number-plate readings at petrol stations, every day.
Close to 7,500 Huawei smartphones were also deployed to officers. Each handset run special police applications for identity checks, summon issues and on-the-go report updates.
High-performance cloud servers paved the way for optimizations of manpower, big data and hardware, while a triple network inter-probability between government-police-government intranets made up for data aggregation.
According to the 2017 H1 Longgang Police, the safe-city advancements resulted to the improvement of case solvency by 45.1 percent compared to last year and robbery cases plummeted by 53.2 percent. Chiew said: “That is the power of new, innovative ICT technologies when applied correctly.”
Third layer, Industrial digitization: Helping industries make the digital shift to gain a competitive edge is the third layer of a country’s digital transformation.
The banner industry on going digital is manufacturing, particularly in sales and logistics. Another industry heading on digital is agriculture.
While agriculture is the world’s oldest sector, it is also making rapid digital progress, Ping said. Data about machinery, soil, irrigation systems, seeds, fertilizer, and weather can now be captured and analyzed for increased agricultural efficiency.
Fourth layer, Digital brain: The ultimate goal of digital transformation, Ping says, is to equip cities with a digital brain for both city and industry management.
He said data integration across industries and domains from “city-wide computing” can create huge business and social value. A prime example for the latter is city management, where safe-city systems in Singapore and Russia, to name a few, will enable centralized management across different departments. When a landslide strikes an area, for example, all departments, including public security to environmental protection can work together and resolve the matter efficiently.
Digital brains are also important for industry management. Ping added if each industry association could pool together all of industry data, relevant authorities would have real-time insight into industry development, and adjust policies accordingly.
Ping said that Huawei is committed to the Asia-Pacific region, as the company will continue to work with partners “to drive digital economy and ensure a better-connected future for all of Asia Pacific.” The first step in this pledge was taken at the Asia-Pacific Innovation Day, where the Huawei exchanged several Memorandums of Understanding with partners across different fields, including Malaysia and the state government of Terengganu.