“In many places around the world, online has become the new normal and we are now seeing more automation and intelligence in our lives”, opened Ken Hu, Huawei’s Rotating Chairman, in the Huawei Industrial Digital Transformation Conference 2021 focusing on the topic ‘Discover New Value Together’.

Discussing digital transformation, Hu mentioned that according to IDC, by 2022, 70% of organisations will accelerate the adoption of digital technologies, like AI, to transform their business processes. The goal is to drive customer engagement, productivity and resilience.

Throughout this process, Hu said that there are three trends we should pay attention to. First, digitalisation is speeding up and expanding to all sectors. According to him, it is not just for internet companies anymore, as we have seen a major shift of traditional industries like manufacturing, education, healthcare, finance, transportation and energy.

Technologies like 5G, AI, cloud and IoT are refreshing business models, enhancing user experiences and driving efficiency.

Second, digital transformation has gone from the office to the factory floor and is entering a new stage of intelligence. Huawei estimates that by 2025, 97% of all large enterprises will use AI and AI will power 77% of all cloud applications.

“Do you know how many enterprises use the cloud right now? Globally speaking, it's about 81%. Originally, our estimates showed that cloud adoption would reach 100% for all enterprises by the year 2025. However, the pandemic has pushed a lot of organisations on to the cloud and we expect to see cloud adoption one to two years earlier than we expected”, he said.

Organisations around the world are now undergoing such trends as part of the objectives of the next industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0.

“Today, we are witnessing the fourth industrial revolution [forging] a path into the fully connected, intelligent world. It is changing the way people interact, live and work and is promoting the integrated development of science, engineering and humanities. We are now creating a new digital world together”, said Peng Zhongyang, Board Member, Huawei Technologies and President, Huawei Enterprise BG, in the same event.

He added that digitalisation is today's greatest certainty in an otherwise uncertain environment, and so, companies across industries are looking to seize the opportunities of digital transformation. According to Peng, Huawei firmly believes that over the next decade, technological innovation would be critical for industry development.

This is evident in various projects Huawei has realised during the pandemic. Huawei has built 13 OpenLabs around the world to support joint innovation. Huawei is also working with almost 900 ecosystem partners to incubate different solutions for industrial scenarios. To date, Huawei has successfully verified more than 60 solutions in areas from smart retail to intelligent manufacturing.

For Hu, “If we work together and innovate together, we can create a more inclusive resilient world that works better for everyone and I'm sure that digital transformation will play an important role in this process”.