Ken Hu, Huawei's Rotating Chairman, speaks at the opening of Huawei's Global Cyber Security and Privacy Protection Transparency Center

Huawei opened its largest Global Cyber Security and Privacy Protection Transparency Center in Dongguan, China today, with representatives from GSMA, SUSE, the British Standards Institution, and regulators from the UAE and Indonesia speaking at the opening ceremony.

 

Along with the opening of the new center, Huawei also released its Product Cyber Security Baseline, marking the first time the company has made its product security baseline framework and management practices available to the industry as a whole. These actions are part of the company's broader efforts to engage with customers, suppliers, standards organizations, and other stakeholders to jointly strengthen cyber security across the industry.

 

"Cyber security is more important than ever," said Ken Hu, Huawei's Rotating Chairman, at the opening of the Dongguan center. "As an industry, we need to work together, share best practices, and build our collective capabilities in governance, standards, technology, and verification. We need to give both the general public and regulators a reason to trust in the security of the products and services they use on a daily basis. Together, we can strike the right balance between security and development in an increasingly digital world."

Ken Hu, Huawei's Rotating Chairman, speaks at the opening of Huawei's Global Cyber Security and Privacy Protection Transparency Center in Dongguan, China

Over the past few years, industry digitalization and new technologies like 5G and AI have made cyberspace more complex than ever, compounded by the fact that people have been spending a greater portion of their lives online throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. These trends have led to a rise in new cyber security risks.

 

Huawei opened the new Global Cyber Security and Privacy Protection Transparency Center in Dongguan to address these issues, providing a platform for industry stakeholders to share expertise in cyber governance and work on technical solutions together. The center is designed to demonstrate solutions and share experience, facilitate communication and joint innovation, and support security testing and verification. It will be open to regulators, independent third-party testing organizations, and standards organizations, as well as Huawei customers, partners, and suppliers.

To further a unified approach to cyber security in the telecoms industry, organizations like GSMA and 3GPP have also been working with industry stakeholders to promote NESAS Security Assurance Specifications and independent certifications. These baselines have seen wide acceptance in the industry, and will play an important role in the development and verification of secure networks.

Mats Granryd, Director General of GSMA, spoke at the opening of Huawei's new center. "The delivery of existing and new services in the 5G era will rely heavily on the connectivity provided by mobile networks and will fundamentally depend on the underlying technology being secure and trusted," he said. "Initiatives such as the GSMA 5G Cybersecurity Knowledge Base, designed to help stakeholders understand and mitigate network risks, and NESAS, an industry-wide security assurance framework, are designed to facilitate improvements in network equipment security levels across the sector."

 

At the event, Huawei also released its Product Cyber Security Baseline, the culmination of over a decade of experience in product security management, incorporating a broad range of external regulations, technical standards, and regulatory requirements. The Baseline, together with Huawei's other governance mechanisms, helps ensure the quality, security, and trustworthiness of the company's products. Over the years, Huawei has built over 1,500 networks that connect more than three billion people across 170 countries and regions. None of these networks have ever experienced a major security incident.

 

"This is the first time we've shared our security baseline framework with the entire industry, not just core suppliers," said Sean Yang, Director of Huawei's Global Cyber Security and Privacy Protection Office. "We want to invite all stakeholders, including customers, regulators, standards organizations, technology providers, and testing organizations, to join us in discussing and working on cyber security baselines. Together, we can continuously improve product security across the industry."

At present, the industry still lacks a standards-based, coordinated approach, especially when it comes to governance, technical capabilities, certification, and collaboration.

"Cybersecurity risk is a shared responsibility," concluded Ken Hu in his opening remarks. "Governments, standards organizations, and technology providers need to work closer together to develop a unified understanding of cyber security challenges. This must be an international effort. We need to set shared goals, align responsibilities, and work together to build a trustworthy digital environment that meets the challenges of today and tomorrow."

Click here to download the Huawei Product Cyber Security Baseline.

Huawei announces its business results for the first quarter of 2021

Huawei announced its business results for the first quarter of 2021 today, which were in line with forecast.

In Q1, Huawei generated CNY152.2 billion in revenue, a 16.5% decrease year-on-year. Its network business maintained steady growth, while consumer business revenue declined, in part as a result of selling the Honor smart device brand in November 2020. Huawei's net profit margin was up 3.8 percentage points^[1] year-on-year at 11.1% – the result of the company's ongoing efforts to improve quality of operations and management efficiency, as well as a patent royalty income of US$600 million.

"2021 will be another challenging year for us, but it's also the year that our future development strategy will begin to take shape," said Eric Xu, Huawei's Rotating Chairman. "We thank our customers and partners for their ongoing trust. No matter what challenges come our way, we will continue to maintain our business resilience. Not just to survive, but do so sustainably. As always, we will remain focused on the needs of our customers and keep delivering practical business value."

Huawei is driving efforts to fully unleash the value of 5G. It is helping carriers around the world roll out their 5G networks, meeting the demands of consumers and industries alike, while boosting its own delivery efficiency. It continues to improve its software engineering capabilities and ramp up investment in the software sector to gradually increase the proportion of software and services in its total revenue mix.

"As always, we remain committed to technological innovation and investing heavily in R&D as we work to address supply continuity challenges caused by restrictions in the market", stressed Xu. "We will continue making breakthroughs in basic science and pushing the frontiers of technology."

[1] The financial data disclosed here are unaudited figures compiled in compliance with the International Financial Reporting Standards; exchange rate at the end of March 2021: US$1 = CNY6.5670 (source: external agencies)

 

Huawei holds its online Industrial Digital Transformation Conference, themed "New Value Together"

Today, Huawei holds its online Industrial Digital Transformation Conference, themed "New Value Together". Nearly 50 customers and partners from more than 10 countries and regions shared their industrial practices and jointly explored the new value of digital transformation in the post-pandemic era. 

 

Mr. Ken Hu, Huawei's Rotating Chairman

In his speech, Mr. Ken Hu, Huawei's Rotating Chairman, pointed out that digital transformation is speeding up across industries, and full cloud adoption will happen 1 to 3 years earlier than expected. Going digital is no longer just for internet companies. It's expanding to traditional industries, and from the office to the production floor. We'll keep innovating in technology and scenario-based solutions to help all industries take advantage of this opportunity.

So far, Huawei has built 13 Open Labs around the world to support joint innovation. In places like Munich and Dubai, the company is working with almost 900 ecosystem partners to incubate different solutions for industrial scenarios. To date, it has successfully verified more than 60 solutions in areas ranging from smart retail to smart manufacturing. On the technology side, Huawei is innovating in areas like smart campuses, deterministic networks, hyper-integrated data centers, smart clouds, and green energy to lay the foundation for an intelligent future.

A Value-Driven Model for Industrial Digitalization: Create New Value Through Continuous Improvement Based on Business and Scenarios

Ideas and models must be tested in real situations. After years of practice, Huawei has proposed a value-driven model for industrial digitalization. Huawei maintains that digital transformation should be focused on actual business use and scenarios, which can then be used to create value for customers through continuous improvement.

In his keynote speech, Mr. Peng Zhongyang, Board Member, President of Enterprise BG, Huawei, stressed that three basic principles must be followed during digital transformation. First, companies must continue to be customer-centric, which is the starting point of digital transformation. Secondly, they must seize two key factors: the convergence of technologies and scenarios is the key to digitalization, while cloud is critical to continuous optimization and value creation in the digital era. Thirdly, businesses should focus on customer requirements to build a symbiotic and shared digital ecosystem from three dimensions: scenario exploration, capacity building, and a cooperation model to jointly create new value for industries.

New challenges and uncertainty will emerge in the post-pandemic era. Huawei will be more open and continue to work with our 30,000 global partners to complement each other's strengths and help overcome new challenges. Mr. Peng Zhongyang, Board Member, President of Enterprise BG, Huawei

Cooperating with Customers to Create New Value in the Industry 

Huawei is committed to working with customers and partners to integrate core business scenarios with ICT technologies, and accelerate industrial digitalization and upgrade through scenario-specific, innovative solutions. This is also the key to the digitalization of the industry. 

In the finance sector, through joint innovation with partners, Huawei has provided NCBA Bank Kenya, the largest commercial bank in the East African sub region, with a new digital core system. The system provides inclusive financial services for more than 18 million users in Kenya and neighboring countries, empowering the real economy and promoting sustainable social development. Eric Muriuki Njagi, Director of NCBA Digital Services, said: "Our cooperation with Huawei aims to solve current problems as well as grasp new opportunities brought by future services."

In the transportation sector, Dr. Georgia Ayfantopoulou, Research Director Intelligent Infrastructure, Networks, Mobility & Logistics; Deputy Director Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT) of Center for Research & Technology Hellas (CERTH), took Europe as an example and shared the situation of digital transformation of port construction. European Union (EU) ports offer services to a global maritime fleet (Greece, for example is ranked first with a share of 17% of the world fleet in 2020). Seaports and the shipping industry are an important nexus of the EU economy, but are facing challenges such as structural performance gaps, lack of high-quality infrastructure at ports and other low-performing services. To address this, the EU has formulated a strategic agenda for the European ports, focusing on maritime infrastructure as part of raising EU’s global competitiveness.

 

In this context, the Green Port Proposal has been developed in collaboration between CERTH and Huawei. Dr. Georgia Ayfantopoulou said: "The Green Port project is deeply involved in the transformation process of the ports’ ecosystems: the users of the ports together with the port’s authorities, the cities try to solve problems of accessibility, efficiency, operation optimization and environmental impact. Ports of the future are sustainable, smart, multimodal and interconnected. Technology solutions from partners like Huawei will contribute to efficiently meeting various challenges."

 

In the education sector, Soochow University partnered with Huawei to jointly build a "Cloud-based Soochow University" that is digital and intelligent. With this project, all people, environments, objects, as well as academic and cultural activities in the campus are digitalized and mirrored on the cloud, allowing for digital integrations in teaching, scientific research, and management.

Xiong Sidong, President of the Soochow Iniversity, remarked in his keynote speech: "Soochow University and Huawei have applied cutting-edge technologies such as AI, big data, cloud computing, and IoT in the planning and construction of a cloud-based campus for information exchange and data sharing. Our aim is to shape a new form of university that is built with future technology and integrates reality and virtual interactions."

In the energy industry, Gao Kunlun, CIGRE Study Committee D2 Regular Member, and Vice President of the Global Energy Interconnection Research Institute, pointed out that in recent years, AI is gradually being applied in many fields, such as equipment maintenance, power grid operation, and customer service. Whilst this effectively improves the efficiency and benefits of the power grid it also reveals technical limitations. With the development of AI theories and technologies, AI-powered electric power systems are now capable of knowledge learning and independent decision-making optimization in complex environments, playing a crucial part in key services such as autonomous power generation and autonomous scheduling of power grids.

From March 24 to 26, Huawei hosts the Industrial Digital Transformation Conference 2021 online, exploring the power of the resilient and innovative digital world from three perspectives: business, technology, and ecosystems. Huawei will share insights on digital transformation, and introduce business strategies, talent programs, and ecosystems that support it. We will detail practices that the business has carried out over recent years in the government, education, transportation, finance, and energy sectors, etc. We will also showcase the latest developments in areas including connectivity, cloud and AI. For more information, please visit us at https://e.huawei.com/en/events/industry-digital-transformation/2021