When I was invited to attend Huawei Connect in Shanghai, as well as have a tour of its Ox Horn research and design center in Shenzhen, I didn’t really know what to expect.
I knew Huawei makes phones ( I used to have one), and 5G equipment, but I didn’t really know about any of its other products or what its products really do.
I expected to learn more about 5G and the company’s cloud products – but I didn’t expect to be sitting in a Huawei Maextro listening to The Weeknd, watching robotic arms serve porridge, or lusting after foldable phones and laptops, as well as the unexpected unveiling of the (claimed) world’s most powerful SuperPoDs and SuperClusters.
Huawei Connect 2025: All Intelligence
Huawei Connect felt like a celebration of connectivity while also showcasing major advancements in AI.
In its day one keynote, the company revealed what it claims to be the world’s most powerful AI computing systems and a range of chips.
But impressive as that is, I was more taken back by the depth and breadth of the products and industries that Huawei is involved in.
Its core products are 5G equipment, which still has a 31.3% share of the global market despite restrictions by the US, but Huawei can also boast smartphones with its own OS which have overtaken iOS in China in usage, laptops which fold out into desktop screens, cloud services in 170+ countries, Ascend AI chips which power most of China’s advancements in AI, and battery technology and self-driving cars which turned a profit of $300 million.
The show including attractions such as a booth on education where I was shown the latest smart whiteboard and classroom technology, a booth demonstrating how 5G in hospitals helps doctors and nurses care for patients, and a booth showing how intelligent networks can identify faults, inform engineers, and redirect coverage to black spots. Oh, and there were robots too.
Not all of these products are developed by Huawei themselves – but it certainly plays a role.
For example, Huawei doesn’t make the mechanical parts of the cars, and Huawei does not make robots, but it provides the technology to help these devices function – so the company builds the audio hardware and software and provides the self-driving technology for vehicles, and the robots rely on Huawei communication technology to offload computing requirements and return instructions.
Research and Design
My trip then took me to the Huawei Ox Horn R&D center in Dongguan, Shenzhen, where it became clearer how one company can have its fingers in so many pies.
Huawei invests around 20% of its revenue in R&D – which equated to about $25 billion in 2024 – and around 50% of its workforce is dedicated to building the next big thing.
Spanning 296 acres and boasting 25,000 staff, the Ox Horn R&D center is a surreal landscape of imitation-style European buildings and landmarks built in what used to be the Chinese countryside not that long ago.
It’s so large that it has its own 7.8km rail network inspired by the Swiss Jungfrau railway.
The entire campus cost $1.5 billon, and also includes a library modeled after the British Museum’s reading room, where employees can relax and learn while getting away from screens.
The campus is designed to foster an atmosphere of inspiration and collaboration, offering 100 cafes and restaurants for workers to enjoy.
As well as being visually impressive, the campus also shows Huawei’s global outlook, with the aim to not just be a Chinese powerhouse but a global one.
While Huawei might not be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with US tech giants like Amazon, which invested $85 billion in R&D over the same period, the company says its commitment to innovation is larger in terms of the amount of profit it puts into research.
Connectivity is a catalyst
Huawei Connect showed me the importance of connectivity at every level to help drive technology forward.
For example, Huawei’s SuperPoDs and SuperClusters are only possible thanks to Huawei’s UnifiedBus technology, which can link hundreds of thousands of chips together.
Without this technology the physical limitations of fibre optic and copper cables render even the most powerful chips almost useless when it comes to the colossal computing demands that AI needs.
Even after AI training is complete, there is the problem of connecting the latest models to machines, or bringing the latest products to users. 5G is up to 20 times faster than 4G with speeds of up to 300Mbps compared with 50Mbps, whilst also having lower latency, and can support a much higher number of simultaneous users.
Without this technology, the latest products and services simply cannot reach users.
What is Huawei?
Over the course of my trip, I learned how Huawei has become more than just a telecommunications company in recent years, evolving into an entire ecosystem supporting the latest technology from AI chips to foldable laptops that bridge the gap between portable and desktop computing.
The company has multiple revenue streams from cloud computing to driverless luxury cars, as its technology looks to reach and improve lives across the globe via education, energy, construction, and medicine.
As a Western journalist invited by Huawei to attend Huawei Connect 2025 and visit its R&D facilities, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect in messaging and tone.
Was Huawei going to be defensive about sanctions and copycat claims? Would there be any element of persuasion on how certain Governments have made a mistake on banning Huawei kit and access to Western hardware and software?
I sensed none of that – instead I saw a company extremely proud and excited about its achievements and how its technology is making a practical difference to users around the world.