AGENCY – Asia-Pacific is ripe with opportunities for digital transformation, and the pandemic has accelerated it. As 5G rolls out at scale, connectivity, cloud, AI, computing, and industry applications have all come together to create unprecedented opportunities for the ICT sector.
According to the Asian Economic Integration Report 2021, Asia Pacific would reap an economic dividend of more than $1.7 trillion yearly or more than $8.6 trillion to 2025. The increased use of digital technologies will result in about 65 million new jobs created yearly in the region until 2025.
With stable human, financial and business fundamentals, the highest net profit in history, and our continued efforts to globalize under pressure and increase R&D investment, Huawei’s unwavering business strategy, focused on connectivity and computing and rapidly developing new businesses including digital power and cloud, is perfectly aligned to drive the digital economy in Asia Pacific.
Leveraging Key Digital Trends
As we shift gears from COVID 19 being a great disruptor to focusing on new opportunities from an acceleration towards digital transformation, I’m re-energized with the possibilities for our digital future. In 2022, our Huawei vision and mission continues, that is to bring digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world. This year with Mobile World Congress 2022 now behind us, I can think of no better opportunity to re-emphasis this vision and extend it to our view for the future world of 2030.
Looking at the future world in 2030, its characteristics and how it will impact every aspect of life, industry, society and economy, Huawei is predicting various indicators across 4 broad areas that include Digital Life, Digital Industries, Digital Infrastructure and Digital Carriers.
For Digital Life, new XR and enhanced multimedia experiences will scale to 1 billion users and offer immervice solutions that will redefine everything from museum visits to shopping. Combining the data requirement for this with Digital Industry will mean the amount of data generated worldwide each year will likely exceed one trillion gigabytes and cloud services will account for more than 87% of enterprise application spending.
Digital Infrastructure will improve energy conservation and emission reduction with renewable energy accounting for 42% of the industry's electricity generation. ICT technologies, while consuming only 2% of global energy, will help reduce CO2 emissions by 20%. Underpinning all this will be Digital Carriers, supporting more than 200 billion connections and providing more computing and storage capabilities to Industries.
The Intelligent World will redefine experiences, optimize operations, and ignite new business. Embracing business, technology and sustainability we hope to work together with customers, partners, governments, industry and consumers to enrich lives through this new digital future. Driving Innovation in Digital Infrastructure Fundamentally, our future world will be based on 3 driving forces: business, technology and sustainability.
First, business-driven forces will arise from the application of digital technologies in various industries to
drive digitalization and improve services.
Second, technology-driven forces will emerge from new connectivity including 5G Advanced, 6G and IPv6+
and computing technologies that are evolving to enable new applications.
Lastly, sustainability-driven forces including green development, social responsibility, and fast response to
emergency situations will profoundly change people’s lives.
Connectivity and cloud are the lifeblood of the digital frontier; however, the digital readiness of the region
varies greatly. Huawei’s Global Connectivity Index (GCI) shows that India, Indonesia and Philippines
ranked 63, 58 and 59 respectively out of all countries, while Singapore ranked No.2. Philippines and
Indonesia are the lowest in fixed broadband speeds compared to Singapore, and Thailand at the front.
More broadly, cloud penetration in the region is less than 20%, 4G mobile coverage is slightly above half,
and FBB reaches barely one third of households.
Under our Tech4All initiative, for example, Huawei’s RuralStar program, with the aim to provide Internet
and connectivity for underdeveloped regions since 2017, has successfully cooperated with 12 operators in
8 countries, including Thailand and Indonesia, in its first year.
In the remote mountains of Chiang Mai, Thailand, for example, Huawei's AirPON solution reuses existing
poles and fiber resources, creating an "air network equipment room" that has provided connectivity to more
than 10,000 villages.
As part of its efforts to create a greener and more sustainable digital world, Huawei will increase its
investment in sustainable green solutions, leveraging clean power generation, electric transportation, and
smart energy storage, to support the Asia Pacific region’s goals of cutting carbon emissions, promoting
renewable energy, and contributing to a circular economy.
Lighting Up Asia Pacific
As one of the most populous and diverse regions in the world, Asia Pacific is set as the top fast growing economy group to the forefront of the global digital landscape. We have been seeing the huge opportunities for digital economy growth and digital transformation in the region, we also have been seeing many countries in the region have released their national digitalization strategies.
For example, Singapore released its Smart Nation 2025 blueprint. Indonesia and Malaysia released strategies to go digital, Bangladesh has released its strategy called Digital Bangladesh, and Thailand announced its vision to become a digital hub in ASEAN. In this great journey, we are committed to supporting the region’s digital vision as a key contributor.
Towards this goal, we will focus on three key areas: Connectivity and Intelligence, Low-Carbon Development, and Digital Inclusion initiatives. Digital Connectivity, including 4G, 5G, fiber and IoT is fundamental to the success of the digital economy and has been further accelerated by COVID-19 with the demand from digital subscribers and for digital services growing significantly. Huawei definitely plays a leading role in this area, not only in product and solution, but in fundamental theory research and industrial design as well.
Cloud Computing and Intelligence is the cloud Infrastructure for an intelligent Asia Pacific, including data centers, cloud services and AI enablement to support data monetization and promote industry digitalization. According to Gartner’s latest report, HUAWEI CLOUD was the fastest growing cloud in the global IaaS market with a growth rate of more than 220%. We are currently ranked 5th in global market share and in Asia Pacific, we operate 7 Availability Zones in Thailand, Hong Kong, and Singapore and have local service
teams in over 10 countries.
