Forget everything you think you know about Huawei. Sure, their smartphones are popular, but that is just a tiny glimpse into the vast world of this Chinese tech giant. Huawei is a hidden leader in a mind-blowing number of industries, silently shaping the future from the ground up.

The company’s lion’s share of investment is in other sectors, such as ICT infrastructure business, cloud computing business, intelligent automotive solution business, smart devices comprising Artificial Intelligence (AI), green energy-based solutions and other digital power and consumer business.

Huawei has a strong research and innovation centre and the company spent 23% of their revenue in this sector, while other tech companies usually spend 10-15% of their revenue in research and development, said high officials of Huawei.

According to Huawei’s officials, through regular research and innovation, they have identified the sectors that will lead the world in the coming days.

New energy (green energy) and AI-based solutions are vigorously growing businesses now.

Depending on market demands, Huawei gives all kinds of solutions, which include ICT-based solutions in the carrier market, enterprise market, connectivity, computing and ICT services, software, cloud computing, digital power, data management, intelligent automotive solutions, improving the management system, cyber security and privacy protection and financial risk management.

Half of the top 500 companies in the world are using Huawei’s solutions regularly, said Huawei’s officials.

Experiencing the US sanctions regarding the use of Google on Huawei’s smart devices in May 2019, the company distributed its risk to other sectors of business and the sanction could not hamper Huawei’s business on a large scale. Smart gadget selling is only 30% of Huawei’s total business and its remaining 70% business include data centre mechanism, cloud computing and cloud server, digital power, and intelligent automobile related business, said officials.

Through Huawei's server, more than 10 stock exchanges of the world are being operated, and world’s top ranked banks are using Huawei’s servers and solutions.

Besides, Huawei’s technology is being used in 210 airports to manage airlines and air traffic.

In China, six major banks, 12 joint-stock commercial banks, and the top five insurance institutions are using Huawei Cloud. Besides, 90% of the top 50 e-commerce companies, 90% of the top 50 gaming companies, and 90% of the top 30 automakers in China have also chosen Huawei cloud.

In Asia Pacific, Huawei Cloud has become one of the best partners for the enterprises’ digital transformation. They have local service teams in more than 10 Asia-Pacific countries and regions.

In Latin America, Huawei Cloud provides the highest number of nodes in the region.

In the Middle East, 2023 marked Huawei Cloud’s first year of local cloud services in Saudi Arabia. The company’s products offer exceptional reliability and network latency.

In South Africa, Huawei Cloud has become the first cloud service provider to operate local data centres. They provide cloud services to 14 countries in Southern Africa.

In Northern Africa, Huawei Cloud launched innovative AI and big data services locally, including the Arabic automatic speech recognition (ASR) service that supports the Egyptian dialect, to help customers accelerate innovation and upgrades.

In Europe, Huawei Cloud started to provide local cloud services in Turkey in 2023. It is also providing services in more than 3,000 enterprises in Europe.

Huawei always believes in sustainable development of the environment and emphasises green energy for the future world.

Visiting Huawei headquarters – sprawling over a 2 sq km area – situated at Shenzhen in China recently, it was seen that the whole campus is decorated with green trees and colourful flowers. It did not look like it was a tech company. It seemed like a well-planned park.

Meanwhile, Huawei's research wing thinks that new energy is one of the strongest growing businesses at this moment. The enterprises and government offices that have a lot of carbon emission are trying to get rid of the situation and Huawei is providing the most modern new energy technology based on solar power. The company is spending 15% of their total revenue on the innovation of the new technology.

Most of the underprivileged countries of Africa and remote areas of different countries are using Huawei's new energy solutions. The company invented devices for solar energy that can help produce nonstop energy even if the sun goes under a dark cloud for a week.

Huawei is also producing a super-fast charging device for charging the green energy-run vehicles. This device is able to fully charge a car within 30 minutes. The company hopes that it will add a revolutionary dimension to the automobile sector in the near future.

In the last 36 years since its launching, Huawei has created more than two lakh job opportunities for people and the company is doing its business in more than 170 countries across the world.

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Hedayet Ullah Khan is a journalist with the Daily Sun