Amid the Industrial Upgrade Wave, We Sat Down with Huawei to Discuss How 5G + Cloud + AI Will Reshape Everything | Ronghui Visits Huawei

From the first proposal of artificial intelligence in the 1950s, to the emergence of cloud computing in the 1960s, to the arrival of 2G in the 1990s, humanity's exploration of a digital, intelligent world has never ceased.

Today, AI has already brought profound transformation to our industries and daily lives; cloud services are developing rapidly as sectors fully embrace them; and China's 5G commercialization is leading globally, with the value of 5G's atomic capabilities becoming apparent. We have arrived at a technological inflection point where 5G, cloud, and AI converge and fuse; what awaits us next is the commercial fission and industrial upgrading driven by these three engines. How much change can new technologies truly bring? Whether looking at the past, present, or future, only when technology and industry collide from multiple angles—exploring technological potential within real business scenarios—will genuine breakthroughs occur.

On September 19–20, Huawei Cloud and Gaorong Ventures hosted a private salon titled "Exploring 5G+ Opportunities, Discussing Strategy and Organization." Nearly 30 CEOs and CTOs from Gaorong portfolio companies—spanning frontier technology, industrial upgrading, consumer, and internet sectors—visited Huawei for in-depth discussions on the innovation opportunities arising from 5G commercialization, cloud maturity, and AI implementation across industries, while also studying Huawei's strategic formulation and organizational management experience.

Making Innovation Traceable: Converged Infrastructure Foundation + Customer-Centricity

"Innovation is traceable, because the foundation supporting the future digital world is largely clear. This foundation of innovation is the converged infrastructure base of 5G + cloud + AI." Hong Fangming, President of Huawei Cloud China, shared how Huawei leverages its technological capabilities to enable industries and help unlock productivity across sectors.

Hong Fangming, President of Huawei Cloud China

Since China issued 5G licenses in June 2019, over 500,000 5G base stations have been built nationwide, with more than 100 million 5G terminal connections. "What we see is not just 5G development in the communications industry—it has already been deployed in emerging sectors like connected vehicles, autonomous driving, and robotics, while also penetrating traditional industries such as oil, coal, steel, manufacturing, and home furnishings. 4G changed our lives; 5G changes industries and transforms the world." On cloud technology, Huawei has persisted in increasing investment, emphasizing that only through ecosystem collaboration with customers and partners, and joint innovation, can we truly accelerate the realization of ubiquitous connectivity and intelligence. Gao Xiang, Founding Partner of Gaorong Ventures, noted that China is not short of tech talent today. Beyond technological innovation, what tech entrepreneurs should learn from Huawei is its customer-centric culture and values. "We know that Huawei Cloud's performance metrics include not only revenue and profit, but also a crucial indicator: whether the customer has succeeded. Chinese entrepreneurs today need to combine innovative technology with industrial understanding and a customer-centric mindset to generate greater value—this is also key to sustainable growth."

Gao Xiang, Founding Partner of Gaorong Ventures

The Great Digital Opportunity: 5G + Cloud + AI Driving Intelligence Across All Industries

Zhang Wenlin, President of Huawei's Corporate Strategy Department, shared how Huawei achieves open innovation amid the massive opportunity of industry digitalization—from industrial upgrading and innovation drivers to innovation practices and mechanisms.

Zhang Wenlin, President of Huawei Corporate Strategy Department

Zhang Wenlin pointed out: "The biggest opportunity we see today is the digitalization of all industries. This has just begun, and Huawei is well-prepared across all dimensions. In such a favorable trend, regardless of the difficulties, as long as we deepen our technology and do what we should do well, there will be endless opportunities. But we need to recognize that industrial upgrading and innovation dynamics have changed." He noted that over 30 years ago, Huawei entered the communications industry with a small switch; today, CT and IT are deeply converging, with ICT capabilities continuously extending into the digitalization of various industries. Meanwhile, industry digitalization and cross-sector integration are in turn driving the rapid development of digital technologies. For the three elements of digital infrastructure—5G, cloud, and AI—Zhang Wenlin offered a structured framework. "First, 5G can be understood as a symbolic concept, actually representing all connectivity technologies. As we say in economic terms, 'to get rich, build roads first'—for digital infrastructure to develop comprehensively, network speed must be achieved through 5G. Cloud is first a technical architecture, then brings complex changes to business models, so cloud represents both architectural transformation and business model upgrading. AI is penetrating all industries and driving industrial upgrading." With 5G + cloud + AI combined, "we see fusion and convergence happening; next is continuously piloting within industry application scenarios to achieve commercial fission." Zhang Wenlin also shared Huawei's strategic panorama, noting that Huawei is building services around four core needs: people, home, organization, and vehicle. Around "people"—entertainment, health, and office needs—all digitalization represents opportunity; around "organization," there are opportunities in campuses, cities, and industries; "home" sits between the two, while "mobility" serves as a crucial carrier. "Therefore, what we see is the connection of a larger ecosystem and larger industries, which drives our industrial layout and partnerships, constantly thinking about how to develop and extend the ecosystem."

Collision of New Technologies and Innovative Enterprises, Jointly Exploring New Growth Points

Under the wave of digitalization and intelligence, only when technology and industry collide can we truly discover how technology can transform industrial processes, converting technological dividends into industrial dividends. At the private salon, companies from Gaorong's portfolio—spanning frontier technology, industrial upgrading, consumer and internet, and healthcare—joined Huawei strategy, technology, and solutions experts to explore co-creation opportunities and capture new commercial growth points.

Gu Jiongjiong, Chief Architect of Huawei Cloud and Huawei Fellow, shared Huawei Cloud's technological competitiveness and strategic vision through specific cases. He explained that Huawei Cloud's technology strategy can be deconstructed along two dimensions: vertical aggregation and horizontal reconstruction. In vertical aggregation, Huawei Cloud integrates cutting-edge technologies including cloud & AI services, backbone networks, edge computing, 5G networks, and terminals, then aggregates them into Huawei's full-stack hybrid cloud. In horizontal reconstruction, Huawei Cloud achieves ultimate cost-performance, ultimate agility, and ultimate experience through reconstruction of computing power, data, and media.

Gu Jiongjiong, Chief Architect of Huawei Cloud and Huawei Fellow

Professor Tian Qi, Chief Scientist of Huawei Cloud AI and IEEE Fellow, shared Huawei Cloud's AI technology innovations across computer vision, decision optimization, and speech & semantics, as well as how these contribute to ecosystem building.

Professor Tian Qi, Chief Scientist of Huawei Cloud AI and IEEE Fellow

Yu Hu, Chief Strategy Officer of Huawei Cloud, pointed out that beyond infrastructure and technology itself, industry digitalization and intelligent upgrading must be complemented by business innovation. Huawei Cloud can empower partners across three dimensions: city, industry, and sector. Against the backdrop of urgent convergence between computing and connectivity, Hu Weiqi, Vice President of Huawei Cloud China, said that Huawei, as the "black soil" of the intelligent world, has already built a highway, and hopes to help industries seize 5G opportunities through more open mechanisms going forward.

Decoding Huawei's Values "High-Speed Rail System" and Organizational Incentive Mechanisms

Since Huawei's founding, core values and corporate culture have been crucial drivers of long-term development. On September 20, at Huawei's Songshan Lake base, Wang Taiwen, former head of Huawei's Corporate Finance Department, delivered a systematic sharing on Huawei's core values, organizational transformation experience, profit-sharing culture, and incentive and talent mechanisms.

Wang Taiwen, Former Head of Huawei Corporate Finance Department

He noted that for every enterprise, core values decisively shape mechanism design, which in turn guides and shapes employee behavior, ultimately manifesting as corporate culture. Regarding Huawei's core values—"customer-centricity, dedication of contributors as the foundation, long-term hard work, and persistent self-criticism"—Wang Taiwen pointed out: "These four sentences actually have internal logic; they are essentially Huawei's power system." He used the "high-speed rail system" as an analogy for Huawei's values: customer-centricity answers where we come from and where we're going—that is, starting from customer needs to satisfying customer needs; dedication of contributors as the foundation is the power and driving force; long-term hard work addresses whether this power system can sustain operation over the long term; persistent self-criticism is essentially a correction system—the path forward may be winding, with detours or even reversals, but if a company has a spirit of self-criticism, it can return to the right track. "If the entire system is fully resolved, this high-speed rail has the opportunity to run for 100 years—this is Huawei's most fundamental business logic."

Exploring opportunities, envisioning the future. Facing new internal and external environments and a new round of industrial transformation, it requires the multi-party efforts and collision of platform pioneers, technology innovators, and industry cultivators to truly ride the wave of digitalization and intelligence. Gaorong Ventures looks forward to deeper discussions with more industries and platforms about future opportunities, helping industries and users achieve a better future.

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