Huawei’s Rotating chairman Eric Xu, announced that the Asia-Pacific region is the company's "major area of focus and investment" and pledged to keep driving innovation and serving customers with leading ICT technologies.
Speaking at the recent "Huawei Connect 2021" press conference, Mr Xu said Huawei also focuses on contributing to an inclusive, digitalised and low-carbon world.
Huawei Connect 2021 was Huawei's annual flagship event for the global ICT industry. Themed "Dive into Digital", this year's event explored how digital technology can better integrate with business scenarios and industry know-how to address critical business challenges, and how stakeholders can work together more effectively to foster an open industry ecosystem and drive shared success.
When asked about Huawei's current progress and future plan on cloud development in Thailand and the Asia Pacific region, Mr Xu emphasised two future strategies.
"Huawei Cloud is the fastest growing cloud service provider in the Asia Pacific market, which is also a focus for the investment and development of our cloud business.
"Our Huawei Cloud team is aiming to become a top three cloud service provider in Asia Pacific within a short period of time. I don't believe this will be too difficult to achieve," he said.
Abel Deng, chief executive officer of Huawei Technologies Thailand, said in a recent press conference that Thailand is a key growth market for Huawei in the region.
He emphasised that Huawei has given priority to our cloud development, which includes the establishment of the first cloud data centre in Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) since 2018, and the second data centre in 2019 in Bangkok to operate specifically for the Thai market.
"This year, we are confident to continuously invest 700 million baht for the third local data centre in Thailand. Making Huawei Cloud the first and only global cloud service provider to have three data centres in Thailand," he said.
Regarding Huawei’s strategy for SME growth, Mr Xu said Huawei is investing US$100 million through the "Huawei Spark Program" over the next three years.
The programme aims to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Asia-Pacific, including those in Thailand, use the Huawei cloud and ecosystem to build and accelerate the growth of sustainable startups.
In Thailand, Huawei collaborates with Digital Economy Promotion Agency (Depa), National Innovation Agency (NIA) and other partners to kick start "Spark Ignite 2021 – Thailand Startup Competition" this May, with around 132 startups signing up to the competition.
"We are going to help SMEs in Asia-Pacific use the Huawei’s cloud infrastructure and build prosperity via access to the Huawei cloud ecosystem. We hope Huawei Cloud will become the cloud service provider of choice for governments and enterprises in the region," said Mr Xu.
Mr Xu also explained how Huawei has set up a separate subsidiary to integrate digital technology and power electronics to reduce energy consumption. "We are doing this as part of the Chinese and global efforts to control CO2 emissions and achieve carbon neutrality."
Huawei Technologies Thailand CEO, Mr Deng, made a similar commitment.
He said that one of the keys to Thailand's digital transformation is the country's move towards carbon neutrality and sustainable development.
In 2020, Huawei’s sale revenue from the digital power business globally reached US$5.5 billion and served one third of the world's population. In 2021, Huawei launched the Digital Power business to support Thailand’s bid to become Asean's carbon-neutral leader, using technology such as the Smart PV for clean energy generation in addition to global practices to reduce carbon emissions.
The company also wants to support the cultivation of digital talent in the country and help SMEs and startups build ecosystems.
For example, the Huawei Asean Academy was established to cultivate Thailand’s digital talent pool and upskilled workforce, with the goal to develop over 100,000 talents within five years. In March 2021, the EEC Office of Thailand and Huawei Signed an MoU for digital talent collaboration in conjunction with Huawei Asean Academy (Thailand) EEC Branch Opening, with the target to produce 30,000 digital workers within the next three years.
When asked about the prospects for US-China relations, Mr Xu was cautiously optimistic but conveyed the company’s strategic goal to "survive, and survive better."
"Huawei is a business organisation. We have to provide good services to our customers and try everything we can to put in place the necessary elements for our survival, and we had already fully assessed our ability to secure chip supplies," he said.
"Everyone wants this situation can improve, but we cannot harbour unrealistic hopes. Therefore, we can only plan for the worst and do our part to prepare with the worst scenario in mind."
Regarding possible restrictions from the US government on Huawei Cloud, Mr Xu said: "We are hearing those rumours. They are speculation and we do not comment on speculation. Our Huawei Cloud team has been innovating nonstop to build a secure and trustworthy cloud. We want to make our customers feel assured when they migrate their key apps and data to our cloud. We want them to be able to use our cloud with confidence."
