Huawei Cloud helping Singapore businesses go regional

At a summit themed Leap to Intelligence with a Better Cloud, organised by Huawei, the company shared how, over the past 20 years, it has been providing integrated information and communications technology (ICT) solutions, nurturing local talent, and offering reliable cloud services in Singapore with the aim to build a vibrant digital ecosystem. 

Leaders shared on Huawei Cloud’s efforts to use technology as a service to boost technology capabilities in Singapore and beyond.  

In a series of presentations, business partners shared the different ways in which Huawei Cloud empowered their capabilities. Huawei highlighted its latest innovations including Huawei Cloud Stack and Cloud Native technology.  

These solutions are part of Huawei Cloud’s goal of “creating a new base for the smart world in Singapore”, Huawei Cloud’s President of Global Marketing and Sales Service, Jacqueline Shi, said in her welcome speech. 

Counting on the success of cloud technologies in Singapore, the new advancements aim to benefit surrounding Southeast Asian countries as well, said Huawei Cloud’s Singapore Managing Director, Rex Lei.  

Over 500 delegates from the government, technology and business sectors from around the globe gathered at the summit held last week. 

Unlocking new potentials with cloud 

To tap into market demand, Huawei Cloud is expanding its services in Singapore with Cloud Native, artificial intelligence (AI) Native and Digital Native solutions, shared Huawei’s President of Global Solution Sales, Mark Chen. 

Giving an example, Chen said the upgraded Huawei Cloud Stack (HCS) 8.3 will expand cloud capabilities, delivering over 100 services in 13 categories to support the digital transformation of different industries. 

Local businesses have tapped on these technologies with the support of Huawei Cloud to enhance their service and operations, he added.  

Singapore-based logistics provider Ninja Van’s Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Shaun Chong, shared how cloud technology enhanced the business’ logistical capabilities and tech infrastructure. 

As the business expanded, they began to rely on technology to meet expectations, Chong said. Cloud-scaling enabled Ninja Van to scale resources up or down as required, improving cost efficiency and agility, he added. 

Leveraging on data was key to providing fast and accurate delivery, Chong shared. In some cases, customers across Southeast Asia requested deliveries to remote areas and unnamed locations that did not show up on regular maps. 

Huawei Cloud provided an agile database to store address data and ensure a smooth service, besides providing big data capabilities to identify route deliveries and overcome operational bottlenecks, he added. 

Huawei officials added that in Singapore alone, Huawei Cloud’s business has grown by over 100 per cent in the past year and the company served over 1,000 local customers as they embarked on their digital transformation journey.  

Global reach enabled by cloud 

But this growth transcends horizons, Huawei added.  

Singapore-based unicorn company, Wiz.AI, was part of Huawei Cloud’s start-up support programme in its early stages, and it is now expanding its reach as a global leader in AI conversational voice technology, Huawei said 

Wiz.AI provides hyper-personalised and multi-lingual customer engagement at scale for businesses across sectors and is now expanding into the Southeast Asian market. 

Similarly, overseas partners such as iFLYTEK are tapping on Huawei Cloud’s capabilities to enhance their reach to Southeast Asia. The company provides AI-powered speech technology for education, finance, healthcare and marketing industries, Huawei said. 

iFLYTEK’s Vice President of Open Platform and President of Overseas Business, William Zhou, shared that Huawei Cloud enabled the business to test more application scenarios overseas. 

Chen noted that Huawei Cloud’s global business grew by 110 per cent last year, with a 20-fold increase of revenue in Asia-Pacific in the last five years, making it the fastest growing cloud provider in the region.  

Collaboration as talent strategy  

Another launch at the summit was the Go Cloud, Go Global-Singapore Cloud Alliance, an effort to expand on the existing ecosystem where partners, users, and community members benefit together from Huawei’s cloud and other technologies. 

To expand the local start-up ecosystem, Huawei Cloud has also collaborated with the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA) in 2022 on the Spark Incubator entrepreneurship initiative, which sparked 180 start-ups. 

To date, Huawei Cloud has trained over 2,200 ICT talents and more than 3,000 developers in Singapore, working with policy makers, ICT practitioners, and community to nurture the next generation of digital talents.