Cybersecurity, digital transformation, 5G: Huawei’s VP shares insights

Shunli Wang, Vice President of Huawei Middle East, spoke exclusively with TECHx about the company’s financial results, cybersecurity, digital transformation, 5G, and growth plans. Continue reading to learn more.

TECHx: The 2021 Huawei financial results revealed solid performance despite a challenging operating landscape. What were some of the highlights?   

Shunli: Despite a decline in revenue, Huawei’s net profits hit a record high, and the company maintained a sound financial position, enabling it to continue to make future-oriented investments and cope with uncertainties. Huawei’s revenue in 2021 was USD 99.9 billion and USD 17.8 billion in net profits, an increase of 75.9% yearly, and its overall performance was in line with forecasts.

Huawei’s workforce, financial, and business operations all remain stable and can support the company’s future development. Huawei’s main business in ICT infrastructure has remained stable while new business segments like digital power and cloud grew rapidly, and its ecosystem development efforts have entered the fast lane.

TECHx: Last year saw renewed efforts by Huawei to enhance cybersecurity, both in its solutions and the broader ecosystem. Discuss some key milestones in the cybersecurity space.

Shunli: The fight against cybercrime is only effective when we work together within broad ecosystems. In 2021, we expanded our partnerships with governments, industry and academia and multinational organizations to strengthen the region’s cyber-defense capabilities. For example, we signed an MoU with the UAE Cybersecurity Council to collaborate in enhancing local strategies and efforts related to cybersecurity. Huawei also became the first global ICT player to join the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation – Computer Emergency Response Team (OIC-CERT), the third-largest CERT organization globally. Participation in OIC-CERT allows Huawei to collaborate in an open and transparent platform with other stakeholders to ensure end-to-end cybersecurity for member states.

Trust is the foundation for a healthy digital environment. With that in mind, we have offered customers and regulators unprecedented access to the inner workings of our technologies through our global network of Transparency Centers. The largest of these facilities is the Global Cyber Security and Privacy Protection Transparency Center in Dongguan, China, a platform built to enable open communication and collaboration. Governments and regulators worldwide have taken note of our commitment to the highest levels of security and privacy, and Huawei is the recipient of 35 Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) certificates in 28 countries and regions across five continents, having complied with supply chain security standards.

These efforts mean we can better support our customers to secure their operations. We have sustained stable network operations during more than 180 major incidents for our customers.

TECHx: Digital transformation has been a focal point for organizations and governments in the region for years but accelerated in the immediate post-COVID environment. How does Huawei support digital transformation efforts in the region?   

Shunli: Huawei’s enterprise business enjoyed rapid growth as digital and intelligent transformation accelerated across industries. In 2021, Huawei launched 11 scenario-based solutions for key sectors such as e-governance, transportation, finance, energy, and manufacturing. By the end of 2021, over 700 cities and 267 Fortune Global 500 companies worldwide had chosen Huawei as their partner for digital transformation.

We see immense value in digitalization-as-a-service—with key pillars being infrastructure, technology, and expertise-as-a-service. This is seen in our collaborations with telecom carriers to build the cloud foundation for an intelligent world. Based on over 30 years of expertise in ICT technologies, products, and solutions, HUAWEI CLOUD now provides global carriers with deployment modes built on cloud-native distributed architecture and multiple sales models.

Digitalization in the Middle East has accelerated remarkably in the recent past. Huawei and others have made remarkable progress in rolling out technologies that would have been unimaginable only a decade ago. In our discussions with businesses and governments in the region, we’ve seen the terms “digital economy” and “economy” becoming increasingly interchangeable. We have expanded many of our partnerships in the region, recognizing that digitalization and data will remain primary drivers of economic growth for years to come.

TECHx: Huawei and partners continued to roll out 5G networks across the Middle East in 2021. What are some of the use cases that continue to emerge?

Shunli: 5G is a crucial driver of digital transformation across the Middle East. As an enabler of the first wave of 5G deployment in many countries across the region, we remain committed to contributing to the Middle East countries’ technology ambitions, especially in light of the mega-events such as the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.

Huawei collaborated with carriers and partners to sign more than 3,000 commercial contracts worldwide for industrial 5G applications. In 2021, 5G saw large-scale commercial deployment in many industries, including manufacturing, mining, steel, port, chemical, cement, power grid, and healthcare. Huawei’s 5G solutions for industries have been replicated at scale across eight typical application scenarios, including remote equipment control, data collection, and product quality inspection.

Third-party test results have shown that 5G networks built by Huawei for customers in 13 countries, including Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and South Korea, provided the best user experience.

TECHx: While 5G is crucial for digitization, the technology has introduced new complexities in network management. How should carriers navigate the new era of connectivity?

Shunli: 5G is crucial to national digital transformation plans, which is why Middle East countries were among the frontrunners in 5G deployments. The network’s ability to support industry verticals through superior service value, efficiency, and price competitiveness are crucial to pursuing these ambitious goals.

Huawei has been honored to work together with operators to do in-depth research on future business leadership, network architecture, and technology evolution. To draw the picture of the future network, Huawei thinks five business capabilities are needed: service penetration, efficiency creativity, resource integration, value competitiveness, and social contribution.

Huawei has proposed the concept and value proposition of “GUIDE”. GUIDE is a business development blueprint to outline the future and address new business challenges through innovative technologies to create network measurement benchmarks. This model can be understood as:

G: Gigaverse initiative for ubiquitous gigabit connectivity

U: Ultra-automation speed up

I: Intelligent computing and Networks-as-a-Service

D: Differentiated experiences on-demand

E: Enabling sustainability with green ICT, such as our ‘More Bits, Less Watts’ strategy across sites, networks, and O&M

GUIDE is already a reality in the Middle East. For example, Huawei and Zain KSA have already signed a memorandum of understanding on “GUIDE to the Future Network”, which aims to explore new avenues of cooperation to define a future-oriented network evolution path, and support Zain to pursue the transition towards a digital economy.

Working in light of the global network standards bodies such as 3GPP and the GSMA in designing and deploying 5G infrastructure is important. To ensure that networks are hardened against security risks. Providers needs to ensure they work within NESAS/SCAS models, and more local models like those being proposed by the OIC, whose security standards are used as a unified certification system by global regulators.

Huawei will continue to track the industry development and create innovations based on customer value to improve network capabilities such as large bandwidth, low latency, and high reliability. This will continuously reduce network costs, reduce network energy consumption, and make breakthroughs in network automation technologies.

TECHx: The 2021 financial results reveal remarkable traction in some of the newer verticals for Huawei. Is this where the next growth opportunities for Huawei lie?

Shunli: Our business strategy is to embrace the current trends of digitalization and carbon neutrality by adjusting our business portfolios. We will focus on connectivity, computing, devices, intelligent automotive components, cloud, and digital power and work to create thriving ecosystems. Additionally, we will continue investing heavily in R&D to strengthen our innovation in systems engineering and drive fundamental changes in three areas: fundamental theories, architecture, and software.

We will also continue to work with our Middle East carrier and enterprise customers and partners to build green, simplified, and intelligent ICT infrastructure and facilitate digital transformation in all industries. Additionally, HUAWEI CLOUD will continue to work with partners and developers to provide customers with stable, reliable, secure, and innovative cloud services.

In the digital power domain, our vision is to integrate digital and power electronics technologies, develop green power, and enable energy digitalization for a better, greener future.