AT CES 2017, nearly 3,000 people attended Huawei Consumer Business Group's keynote where CEO Richard Yu shared Huawei's vision of the next frontier in mobile: The Intelligent Phone, an AI-powered device. Yu's address reinforced Huawei's commitment to fueling innovation and collaborating with leading partners, to transform the way people experience the world. Yu also revealed that the acclaimed Huawei Mate 9 will be available in the US featuring advances at the forefront of hardware and software innovation, the Mate 9 Pro and the Porsche Design Mate 9 will also be Huawei's first Google Daydream-ready smartphones. Over the past five years, Huawei has become one of the top three global smartphone brands. During the keynote, Yu pointed to the three pillars the Huawei brand – passion, collective wisdom and meaningful innovation – to explain the company's success. In 2016, Huawei shipped more than 139 million smartphones, a 29 percent increase over 2015. According to IPSOS, Its global brand awareness has also seen steady growth, rising from 76% to 81%, with a 66.7% and 100% increase in overseas user consideration and preference. Through its continued investment in R&D, which surpassed $38 billion over the last 10 years, Huawei will drive the next era of innovation to inspire and empower mankind. As part of this strategy, Huawei will leverage the collective wisdom of the world's brightest minds, both within and outside the company, to help shape the next era of consumer technology. Most recently, Huawei opened the new Max Berek Innovation Lab with Leica, deepening its strategic partnership with the world leader in photography and imaging. As the world demands to be digitally and seamlessly connected, Huawei is paving the way to create transformative experiences that will ultimately bring the Intelligent phone to life. Yu pointed to a new period of evolution ahead of us – initially the PC gave us a portal to access information; the Internet followed, which let us share information; today we live in an existence where everything is connected. Yu calls this an intelligent world where devices are constantly sensing and gathering data about our environments. To thrive in this intelligent world, the advent of artificial intelligence integrated into today's smartphones offers us a significant leap forward and brings us one step closer to the next phase in mobile: the Intelligent Phone. The AI-powered Intelligent Phone will be able to anticipate our needs with new functionality that will truly match the way we think and feel. In order to bring the Intelligent Phone to life, Yu discussed the design needs of this dynamic, new device which will emulate the human capacity to interact with and understand the world around it. For example, the Intelligent Phone will need advanced computer vision to see and understand its surroundings. It will need more intelligent and developed microphones through which to hear and identify different sounds. It will require advances in power and battery life to process vast amounts of information. To accelerate the development of the Intelligent Phone, Huawei is working to further develop its sensor technology, machine learning, data management and chipset. By embracing these new advances, Huawei believes the Intelligent Phone will unify digital and human intelligence to make our lives better. Yu added: "Currently people connect with the digital world using their smartphones. In the future, the Intelligent Phone will change all of this. The Intelligent phone will be an extension of who we are – an indispensable part of our lives that uses artificial intelligence to adapt to our needs, allowing us to seamlessly interact with the real and digital worlds."
