Huawei: Region’s 5G ecosystem growing faster than expected

Looking ahead to an all-connected, all-intelligent world, 

Huawei—a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices—recently hosted top ICT industry leaders at its ‘5G is ON’ forum, co-located at the SAMENA Leaders’ Summit. 

During the forum, organizations from the public and private sectors laid plans for 5G readiness in the region, while examining best practices ahead of large-scale 5G network deployments in the Middle East and internationally. Huawei provided insights on how 5G can benefit the acceleration of digital transformation, help achieve the targets of the national visions and agendas, in addition to pushing the development of different industries and sectors in the region. 

Mr. Wang Su, VP of Huawei Middle East Marketing,said:” 5G industrial development is accelerating. Huawei will work with ecosystem cooperators on Cloud X solutions (Cloud VR & Cloud Gaming, etc.) and vertical industry applications (Oil & Gas, etc.) through its wireless XLabs and ME OpenLab, and introduce these use cases to Middle East operators along the 5G journey as partners rather than vendors". 

Wang Su, VP of Huawei Middle East Marketing

Huawei is working with customers and partners to drive the large-scale commercial rollout of 5G, and build a mature 5G ecosystem that thrives on shared success, pushes the limits of technology and promotes social progress along the way. 

Mr. Pierric Duthoit, Industry Director, Google MENA, said: “We are happy to participate at the 5G is ON forum in Leaders’ Summit, SAMENA. As 5G is transforming most industries, we believe that the acceleration of the development of video consumption on Youtube and the rise of new applications such as VR/AR with Google Lens, Google Photos, Google Paly Store and cloud gaming will certainly benefit from the 5G. Google is working towards providing the best experience to our customers.”

Pierric Duthoit, Industry Director, Google MENA

Mr. Hajime (Gen) Nakamura, General Manager, Sony Professional Solutions MEA, said: “To thrive in today’s media environment, you need to deliver content anytime, anywhere to an unprecedented range of platforms. You need to do it efficiently, reducing your footprint, streamlining operations and achieving financial flexibility – all without sacrificing quality. Sony’s Intelligent Media Services enhanced with the introduction of 5G services will provide customers flexibility to unlock more value from their content.”

Hajime (Gen) Nakamura, General Manager, Sony Professional Solutions MEA

Mr. Wang Xiangning, connected-drone project manager from China Unicom Research Institute, said: “China Unicom considers connected- drone as a growth engine in To B business in 5G age.5G technology with high bandwidth, low latency capabilities are naturally equipped with high-definition image/video transmission and remote control. Ecosystem and unified international industry standard are vital for 5G drone business successful. China Unicom would like to share the experiences which is happening in China and promote to build unified international connected drone standard with Huawei, TYJW and other partners who would like to join us in Middle East region and worldwide."

Wang Xiangning, connected-drone project manager from China Unicom Research Institute

Mr. Yang Meng, CTO of TYJW, said:“Connected drone involves cloud computing，Big DATA and AI, is an inevitable way for operators to expand their business in low altitude IoT and 5G,  has already widely applied in China by China Unicom and TYJW."

Yang Meng, CTO of TYJW

Mr. Du Yeqing, VP of Huawei 5G Product Linehosted and introduced the progress of Huawei 5G ecosystem cooperation strategy. For the past few years, one of Huawei’s main focus areas has been creating the 5G ecosystem through collaborating with leading partners in the region and globally. Currently, we finished joint solution development with TYJW for the long-distance connected drone solution, with Visyon for the Cloud VR application solution, with LetinVR for Cloud VR live broadcasting solution, with BoE for 4K/8K video solution and with PlayGiga for Cloud Gaming solution in the region.

All factors that 5G need are available now: 5G chipsets, CPEs and spectrum are ready to serve the large scale rollout of 5G in the region. 5G is an E2E system and Huawei’s strength is not only staying in wireless but in all aspects of 5G, from devices, to network, and to ecosystems. In 2018 Huawei announced the world’s most powerful 5G chipset and CPEs with up to 4.6Gbps downlink. Recently, Huawei announced the world’s 1st foldable 5G smartphone – Mate X.

The root reason of Huawei’s leadership in 5G is our insistent and heavy investment in 5G for the past 10 years. We have brought 283 global industry partners and 57 regional partners into X-lab. Huawei believes it will only take 3 years to achieve 500 million users to 5G, which took 6 years for 4G and 9 years for 3G. It is estimated to have 1 million sites of 5G globally in 2019.

Mr. An Jian, President of Carrier Network Business Group, Huawei Middle East, said：“Huawei established X-lab 3 years ago to explore vertical use cases with our global partners. Also, here in Middle East, we launched a local ME ecosystem partnership program last year, to incubate local use cases in the region. We believe that the oil industry can champion that transformation to harness the power of 5G. In Middle East, all of the GCC countries have started 5G deployment. I believe the GCC will keep leading in the global 5G race for years to come.”

An Jian, President of Carrier Network Business Group, Huawei Middle East

Under the summit theme ‘Early Proliferation of 5G - Vital to Building the Digital Economy’, Huawei participated in several top discussions at the Summit. These included the high-level leaders’ roundtable conversation addressing the impact of 5G, industry 4.0, cross-industry engagement, and digital enablement. Huawei was also a key contributor to the leaders’ panel discussion, with participants examining key policies that will enable the transition to an inclusive 5G ecosystem across the Middle East. 

Alongside the various discussions, Huawei presented its end-to-end 5G solutions within a dedicated exhibition area, including 5G-ready technologies such as chipsets and consumer devices, network infrastructure, and bespoke solutions for over 280 global industry partners. 

A number of Huawei’s ecosystem partners were with the company at the SAMENA Leaders’ Summit, including: Google, Sony, China Unicomm, TYJW, Playgiga, Vsiyon, LetinVR, BoE, Aerodyne, No Fire Cloud, Quectel, INLIFE-HANDNET, MGI TECH Co. Ltd, HiScene, DALU ROBOTECH, and Fibocom.