Huawei Hosts an Energy Summit — Digital Energy, Powering the Low Carbon Era

Huawei hosted the Energy Summit online, which was held within the framework of HUAWEI CONNECT 2021 and themed "Digital Energy, Powering the Low Carbon Era". During the summit, customers and partners discussed best practices in using new technologies to transition the energy industry toward carbon neutrality. Huawei also released the Global Energy Transition and Zero Carbon Development White Paper and shared its Energy Trans-Cube Strategy.

  

Energy Trans-Cube, Creating New Value for the Industry

After signing the Paris Agreement in 2015, more countries than ever before are committed to carbon neutrality and are taking positive actions to address climate change. Each one follows a different path, suitable to its resource profile, energy, and environment. "Despite the strong will to go carbon neutral, we need to take into account three challenges: green and low carbon development, economic development, as well as the security and continuity of energy supply. The convergence of energy transformation and digital transformation will pave the digital way for carbon neutrality," said David Sun, Vice President of Huawei Enterprise BG and President of the Global Energy Business Unit. He added, "Huawei has developed a Trans-Cube methodology. It suggests that to get closer to a net-zero carbon intelligent energy system and achieve global zero-carbon development, we should build three core capabilities — net-zero carbon transformation, energy transformation, and digital transformation."

David Sun, Vice President of Huawei Enterprise BG and President of the Global Energy Business Dept, delivering a speech at the Energy Summit

The first capability — net-zero carbon transformation — will help various industries manage their carbon assets, and implement de-carbonization actions suitable to their specific contexts. In the process, they will go from low-carbon to near-zero carbon, and eventually achieve carbon neutrality.

Then, energy transformation will make energy production and consumption more reliable, secure, and efficient, transforming from a single centralized system to a diversified, distributed, and integrated one. The ultimate goal is to achieve multi-energy coordination and optimize efficiency.

Last but not least, there is digital transformation, which will enable the industry to transform from information-based to digital, and finally intelligent. With data at its core, digital transformation will enable net-zero carbon transformation and energy transformation.

Three Core Capabilities of Zero-carbon Smart Energy System

White Paper Release — New Ideas to Lead the Industry

According to Guo Xiaobo, Energy expert at Deloitte China, going carbon neutral means achieving energy transformation and zero-carbon development as soon as possible, using more renewable resources, changing the way we use energy, and using new technologies to reduce emissions. Based on this, the Global Energy Transition and Zero Carbon Development White Paper analyzes the key factors affecting energy transition, and proposes a new plan for the energy sector — building a net-zero intelligent energy system.

Blueprint of Zero-carbon Smart Energy System

The said system focuses on interconnecting oil, gas, electricity, heat, and hydrogen systems, and aims to achieve secure, reliable, efficient, cost-effective, and clean energy. Anthony Hu , Chief Representative for Energy Transition (Carbon Neutrality), Global Energy Business Unit of Huawei Enterprise BG, said, "The architecture of the net-zero intelligent energy system will interconnect the energy system, carbon system, and ICT infrastructure as well as eventually converging energy, carbon, information, and value flows. Gradually, it will form a system with data at its core, promoting the digitalization of the energy industry."

Anthony Hu , Chief Representative for Energy Transition (Carbon Neutrality), Global Energy Business Unit of Huawei Enterprise BG

Drive Data to Barrel, Embrace Intelligence to Grow

The digital transformation and intelligent development of the oil and gas industry is still in its infancy. According to Lv Gongxun, Senior Consultant of Huawei and Former General Manager of China National Corporation for Exploration and Development of Oil and Gas (CNODC), digital transformation signals four opportunities for the industry: rebuilding business models, transforming management models, innovating business models, and accelerating transformation and value growth.

Lv Gongxun also discussed the value of cloud for the oil and gas industry: "Cloud technologies enable centralized information resource planning, intelligent management and control, flexible provisioning, convenient services, and high security and efficiency. They will transform the existing business models."

Lv Gongxun, Senior Consultant of Huawei and Former General Manager of CNODC

Power grids are another important area of energy transformation, rapidly evolving with new technologies. In this context, Felix Chifwaila, Senior Manager of Electro-Technical Services at ZESCO, introduced the role of video and AI in improving grid O&M capabilities. For example, visualizing channel data leads to fewer operational risks and makes inspection 80 times more efficient. Video and AI also help detect potential faults in time, helping eliminate 90% of power outages every year. Having an intelligent inspection platform and apps leads to 30% more efficient emergency response and maintenance. Mr. Chifwaila noted, "ZESCO is looking forward to continued cooperation with Huawei, helping ZESCO become a regional power hub in digital transformation."

Felix Chifwaila, Senior Manager of Electro-Technical Services at ZESCO

ICT and OT Drive Energy Digital Transformation

"As an Operation Technology (OT) system service provider, DFE actively cooperates with ICT vendors, including Huawei, to complement each other's strengths, promote energy digital transformation, and build intelligent and innovative solutions." — Fang Zhengji, General Manager of DFE. He introduced the innovative solutions DFE developed with Huawei — Intelligent Substation Inspection System and Automatic Transmission Line Inspection System. Powered by DFE and Huawei technologies, the two solutions help enterprises further their digital and intelligent transformation.

                Fang Zhengji, General Manager of DFE, spoke at the Energy Summit

Like many others, Huawei started out as a non-digital native enterprise. This means that the company has accumulated extensive experience and lessons learnt through both internal projects and industry practices. It has a first-hand understanding of the challenges traditional enterprises face during digital transformation and has paved a "digital way" for the transformation and development of the energy industry.

 

Huawei hosts HUAWEI CONNECT 2021 online from September 23 to October 31. The theme of this year's event is Dive into Digital. We're going to dive deep into the practical application of technologies like cloud, AI, and 5G in all industries, and how they can make organizations of all shapes and sizes more efficient, more versatile, and ultimately more resilient as we move towards economic recovery.
For more information, please contact our local team or check out https://www.huawei.com/en/events/huaweiconnect

 

For more information about the Global Energy Transformation and Zero Carbon Development White Paper, click Global Energy Transition and Zero Carbon Development White Paper

 

 

 

Ayala Foundation, Huawei scale up efforts towards building sustainable communities

 

Ayala Foundation Inc. (AFI) and Huawei Technologies Philippines Inc. held a virtual signing ceremony today to mark another milestone in their purposeful partnership aimed to provide digital education to Filipinos and building sustainable and resilient communities, with the long-term goal of contributing to Philippine nation-building.

 

At the event, AFI Senior Director for Social Development Joanna Maria Duarte, Huawei Philippines Vice President Daniel Guo and Huawei Philippines Director for Globe Telecom Zeh Zhang inked a Memorandum of Understanding to formalize the partnership between AFI and Huawei. The collaboration coincides with the celebration of AFI's 60th anniversary with the theme: "Faith in the Filipino – 60 Years of Partnerships in Nation-building."

 

Under the MoU, Huawei is donating $200,000 to support AFI's programs focusing on disaster recovery and emergency response, education and training, and sustainable livelihood for women and indigenous peoples. Huawei also extends its support to Globe’s environmental programs with a donation of $100,000 for the telco’s rainforest bio-diversity program in Mindanao, bringing the total to $300,000 for the Ayala Group of Companies’ sustainable development initiatives.

 

In her message during the signing ceremony, Duarte recalled AFI's partnership journey with Huawei over the years. "Huawei Philippines has been a long-time supporter of Ayala Foundation's programs, particularly in the education sector. Throughout the years, Huawei has provided students in our partner communities all over the Philippines with facilities and equipment to improve their learning experience," she said.

 

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, such assistance to educational institutions is immensely needed to help students and teachers cope with the challenges of online learning. "In the past year, we have seen the extraordinary effects brought about by COVID-19. The Philippine education sector has been hit hard as teachers and students adapt to no face-to-face learning," Duarte said.

 

She added that small-scale producers were also affected by the pandemic due to movement restrictions. "It is now, more than ever, that sustainable development must be at the forefront of our organizations," Duarte emphasized, noting that Huawei's donation will enable AFI to create and scale up its efforts through technology.

 

Sharing the same advocacies as AFI, Huawei Philippines believes in the lasting positive impact of social responsibility programs geared towards enabling the Filipino youth to achieve their dreams and improving the lives of people in local communities.

 

Guo said Huawei Philippines looks forward to continuing its partnership with Ayala Foundation and doing more sustainability programs for the benefit of Filipinos. "In the future, we want to be more active in contributing to Ayala Foundation's CSR programs and in giving back to the Philippines," Guo affirmed.

 

Guided by its global digital inclusion initiative, TECH4ALL, Huawei Philippines has been working with its local partners to create real change by connecting the unconnected communities, providing equitable access to technologies to underserved groups, and protecting the environment.

 

AFI continues to nurture partnerships with a wide network of government, nongovernmental, corporate, and community-based organizations, as well as private individuals. It is on a mission to build communities that are creative, productive, self-reliant and proud to be Filipino.

Huawei: Innovating Nonstop for Faster Digitalization

 

Huawei Rotating Chairman Eric Xu delivers a keynote speech at HUAWEI  CONNECT 2021

Huawei's annual flagship event for the global ICT industry – HUAWEI CONNECT 2021 – kicked off today. Huawei Rotating Chairman Eric Xu opened the event with a keynote speech titled "Innovating Nonstop for Faster Digitalization".

 

This year's event, themed "Dive into Digital" explores how digital technology can better integrate with business scenarios and industry know-how to address critical business challenges, and how stakeholders can work together more effectively to foster an open industry ecosystem and drive shared success. The event is scheduled to have four keynotes, five summits, and 66 sessions, featuring more than 200 speakers, including industry visionaries, business leaders, top tech experts, and ecosystem partners. It will be live streamed in 11 languages on Huawei's corporate website and by its media partners. The event will also feature online exhibitions, remote visits to exhibition halls, and open panel discussions, enabling online interaction and one-stop experiences.

 

In his keynote, Xu spoke about how helping industries go digital is a critical aspect of Huawei's mission to bring digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.

 

Xu said, "Digital development relies on digital technology. For digital technology to stay relevant, we must continue to innovate and create value. Cloud, AI, and networks are three critical digital technologies." Xu then shared some of the progress Huawei has made in these three areas, what Huawei is doing to enable low-carbon development, and where the industry as a whole is heading.

 

Xu explained that HUAWEI CLOUD, the company's cloud service that was launched just four years ago, has already brought together more than 2.3 million developers, 14,000 consulting partners, and 6,000 technology partners, and also made more than 4,500 services available in the HUAWEI CLOUD Marketplace. It has become an important platform for Internet companies, enterprises, and governments alike to take their organizations digital.

 

At the event, Xu launched the industry's first distributed, cloud-native service called UCS – a ubiquitous cloud-native service available on HUAWEI CLOUD. With UCS, Huawei plans to provide enterprises with a consistent experience while using cloud-native applications that are not constrained by geographical, cross-cloud, or traffic limitations, thereby accelerating digital transformation in all industries.

 

Huawei's full-stack, all-scenario AI portfolio released back in 2018 is also progressing as expected. Its MindSpore framework has become the mainstream AI computing framework in China. Meanwhile, the Atlas 900 cluster, as well as the cloud services based on it, currently serve more than 300 enterprises, supporting the training of many models which include the HUAWEI CLOUD Pangu large models. HUAWEI CLOUD ModelArts has made AI application development incredibly simple with its full-pipeline, scenario-based services. The end goal of ModelArts is to enable each and every engineer to independently develop their own AI applications.

 

Xu also introduced Huawei's innovations in the network domain. As organizations go digital, they tend to see exponential growth in network complexity. To tackle this, Huawei has been innovating solutions for global networks based on the concept of autonomous driving network (ADN). The company has been working with customers in the finance, education, and healthcare sectors to innovate and deploy new applications, and build networks that are self-fulfilling, self-healing, self-optimizing, and autonomous.

 

Xu went on to explain how Huawei is using digital technology to support low-carbon development, as part of global efforts to achieve peak CO₂ emissions and carbon neutrality. Specifically, Huawei focuses on three key initiatives:

(1) Investing and innovating in energy-saving technologies to deliver more energy-efficient ICT products for a low-carbon ICT industry;

(2) Investing in innovations where power electronics and digital technologies converge to promote clean energy and the digitalization of traditional energy; and

(3) Providing digital technology to help all sectors go digital and low-carbon.

 

Zhang Ping'an, CEO of Cloud BU and President of Huawei Consumer Cloud Service, elaborated on HUAWEI CLOUD's strategic initiatives and launched new services and products at the event. "The key to successful digital transformation is to think cloud native and act cloud native," said Zhang. "HUAWEI CLOUD joins our customers and partners to dive into digital and explore the potential of Everything as a Service – Infrastructure as a Service for global accessibility, Technology as a Service for flexible innovation, and Expertise as a Service for shared excellence." Zhang announced two new Regions in Mexico and China's Ulanqab, and launched 10 new HUAWEI CLOUD services. The announcement included MacroVerse – HUAWEI CLOUD aPaaS, OptVerse AI Solver, HUAWEI CLOUD Stack 8.1, SparkRTC – a real-time audio and video service, and Pangu, a large model for drug molecules.

 

Customers and partners in attendance included Christophe Ozer, Head of Orange Cloud (Orange Flexible Engine) APAC; Wu Qiang, Vice President of Tianjin Port Holdings; Chen Haining, General Manager of IT Dept from Shanghai Pudong Development Bank; and Jiang Chuanrong, Chairman of Shanghai Mirror Pictures. They described their experience of joint innovation with Huawei in their digital transformation. Wu Qiang said, "Tianjin Port is one of the world's top 10 ports, with an annual throughput of nearly 20 million containers. The HUAWEI CLOUD OptVerse AI Solver helps us improve our planning speed by more than 100 times based on tens of millions of variables and constraints, maximize resource scheduling, and supercharge operation efficiency."

 

Xu concluded his speech with, "Nonstop innovation has been the driving force behind digitalization thus far. Moving forward, if we hope to reach more ambitious goals for digitalization, nonstop innovation will continue to be key. So let's innovate nonstop for a better future."

 

 

Huawei hosts HUAWEI CONNECT 2021 online from September 23 to October 31. The theme of this year's event is Dive into Digital. We're going to dive deep into the practical application of technologies like cloud, AI, and 5G in all industries, and how they can make organizations of all shapes and sizes more efficient, more versatile, and ultimately more resilient as we move towards economic recovery.

 

For more information, please contact our local team or check out https://www.huawei.com/en/events/huaweiconnect

Huawei Releases the Intelligent World 2030 Report to Explore Trends in the Next Decade

David Wang releases the Intelligent World 2030 report

Huawei, along with industry partners, held the Intelligent World 2030 Forum. David Wang, Executive Director and President of ICT Products & Solutions of Huawei, released the Intelligent World 2030 report with a keynote speech on Exploring the Intelligent World 2030. This is the first time that Huawei has used quantitative and qualitative methods to systematically describe the intelligent world in the next decade and forecast industry trends, helping industries identify new opportunities and discover new value.

Over the past three years, Huawei has conducted in-depth exchanges with more than 1,000 academics, customers, and partners in the industry, organized more than 2,000 workshops, and drawn on data and methods from authoritative organizations, such as the United Nations, World Economic Forum, and World Health Organization. Huawei has derived insights from scientific journals such as Nature and IEEE, and drawn wisdom from relevant industry associations and consulting firms, as well as experts within and outside Huawei. Through these efforts, Huawei has developed the Intelligent World 2030 report, providing insights into ICT technology and application trends in the next decade.

The report proposes eight cross-disciplinary and cross-domain directions for exploration at the macro level. It explains how ICT technologies can solve critical problems and challenges of human development, and what new opportunities can be brought to organizations and individuals. At the industry level, the report explores the future technologies and development directions of communications networks, computing, digital power, and intelligent automotive solutions.

Wang said, "30 years ago, we decided to enrich life through communications. 10 years ago, we decided to connect every corner of the world, to build a better, connected world. Now, our vision and mission is to bring digital to every person, home, and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world. We firmly believe that a brilliant intelligent world is arriving at an accelerated pace."

Many heavyweight guests were invited to speak at the forum, including renowned futurist Steven Johnson, founding and rotating chairman of the World Electric Vehicle Association Chen Qingquan, Co-President of Roland Berg Global Management Committee Denis Depoux, and Vice President of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) Wang Zhiqin. They shared their insights on the intelligent world and discussed how ICT can better drive socio-economic development.

As the prominent futurist and science author Steven Johnson said, we are entering an era of exponential growth. The coming decades will be characterized by a golden age of collaboration between human and machine intelligence, and algorithms will enhance human intelligence. As technology grows exponentially, all of society will benefit.

The Intelligent World 2030 Forum is the first time that Huawei has systematically shared cutting-edge research and insights into the next decade. This sharing of knowledge will bring great value to social development, especially for global digital transformation and digital economy.

Imagination will determine how far we will go in the future, action will determine how quickly we will reach the future, and the best way to predict the future is to create it. There are still plenty of challenges to overcome on the road to the intelligent world. As David Wang said at the end of his speech, "We believe, the greatest wisdom is found in shared ideas. Dreams are the key driver of social progress. Moving towards the next decade, let's work together to shape a better, intelligent world."

 

Overview of the report:

Outlooks for the intelligent world 2030: We will live a better life in 2030, with more food, larger living spaces, renewable energy, digital services, and no traffic. We will be able to relinquish repetitive and dangerous work to machines, and have secure access to digital services. To meet these needs, we have set eight directions for exploration, including health, food, living, and transportation.

In 2030, we will be able to identify potential health problems by computing and modeling public health and medical data, shifting the focus from treatment to prevention. Precise medical solutions powered by IoT and AI will become a reality.

In 2030, vertical farms unaffected by climate will be applied on a large scale, so that we can provide green food for all. 3D printing will make it possible for us to create artificial meat to meet our nutritional needs.

Our homes and offices will become zero-carbon buildings. Next-generation IoT technology will build adaptive home environments that understand our needs.

New energy vehicles will become the mobile "third space". New aircraft will make emergency services more efficient, reduce the cost of medical supplies, and change the way we commute.

In addition to healthcare, food, living spaces, and transportation, Huawei has also explored the future of cities, energy, enterprises, and digital trust. We look forward to working with you to explore endless possibilities in 2030.

Communications Network 2030: In the next decade, the objects and boundaries of network connectivity will continue to expand. By 2030, as technologies such as XR, naked-eye 3D display, digital touch, and digital smell develop further, "digital vision, digital touch, and digital smell" will create an immersive and disruptive experience through next-generation networks. At the same time, as networks evolve from connecting billions of people to hundreds of billions of things, network design will change from focusing on human cognition to machine cognition. We will see an emergence of multi-level computing infrastructure for hundreds of billions of things and massive data, as well as computing power networks that provide connectivity. In addition, four future network scenarios will gradually become a reality. They are the networks that will deliver a consistent experience for homes, offices, and vehicles, satellite broadband Internet, industrial Internet, and computing power network.

As part of the intelligent world, the communications network of 2030 will evolve towards cubic broadband networks, deterministic experience, AI-native, HCS, security and trustworthiness, and green and low-carbon networks. Huawei predicts that the total number of global connections will reach 200 billion by 2030. At the same time, enterprise network access, home broadband access, and individual wireless access will exceed 10 Gbit/s, ushering in an era of 10 Gbit/s connectivity.

Computing 2030: By 2030, the digital and physical worlds will be seamlessly converged, allowing people and machines to interact perceptually and emotionally. AI will become ubiquitous and help us transcend human limitations. It will serve as microscopes and telescopes of scientists, enhancing our understanding of everything from the tiniest quarks to the largest cosmological phenomena. Industries already making extensive use of digital technology will become more intelligent with AI. Computing energy efficiency will increase dramatically, bringing us closer to zero-carbon computing. Digital technologies can become a tool for achieving the global goal of carbon neutrality.

Computing is approaching its physical limits, so innovation in software, architecture, and systems are needed. More importantly, the entire industry needs to jointly explore a new foundation for computing, break through the physical limits of semiconductors, and make computing greener, more secure, and more intelligent. Huawei predicts that by 2030, humanity will enter the yottabyte data era, with general-purpose computing power increasing by 10 times and AI computing power by 500 times.

Digital Power 2030: In the next decade, humanity will enter the digital power era, striving towards low-carbon development, electrification, and intelligent transformation. New renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaic and wind power, will gradually replace fossil fuels. Power electronic technology and digital technology are being deeply converged to enable "bit to manage watt" throughout the energy system and realize various intelligent applications on the "energy cloud". Huawei predicts that by 2030, solar energy will become one of our main power sources, the proportion of renewables in global electricity generation will be 50%, the share of electricity in final energy consumption is expected to exceed 30%, electric vehicles as a proportion of new vehicles sold will exceed 50%, and renewable energy will power 80% of digital infrastructure.

Intelligent Automotive Solution 2030: In the next decade, electrification and intelligence will be unstoppable, and ICT technologies will converge with the automotive industry. The automotive industry will witness the development of intelligent driving, intelligent spaces, intelligent services, and intelligent operations. Huawei hopes to use its ICT technologies to enable an intelligent automotive industry and help carmakers build better vehicles.

The ultimate goal of intelligent driving is to use technologies such as autonomous driving to greatly reduce the incidence of traffic accidents, and deliver efficient and seamless travel experiences to users. Intelligent driving has so far been mainly limited to closed roads like high-speed roads and campus roads, but it will gradually see more application on public roads, such as those in urban areas. Vehicles will become a new intelligent space. With the support of ICT, technologies like AI, biometric recognition, in-vehicle optical sensors, and AR/VR will bring new features to the cockpit. Intelligent vehicles will truly transform from a flexible mobile space to an intelligent living space that integrates the virtual and physical worlds. Huawei predicts that, by 2030, autonomous vehicles will account for 20% of new vehicles sold in China, electric vehicles will account for more than 50% of new vehicles sold, vehicles will come equipped with computing power of over 5,000 TOPS, and in-vehicle network transmission speed per link will exceed 100 Gbps.

For more information, please visit: https://www.huawei.com/en/giv

 

UE, STI dominates Huawei annual ICT tilt for Filipino Students

 

With the theme of "Connection, Glory, Future," the national leg of Huawei ICT Competition Philippines 2021 was concluded yesterday with the teams from the University of the East and STI College bagging the top awards.

 

Huawei Philippines named the UE team as the champion for the cloud category of the competition. The team is composed of instructor Mr. Alexis John Rubio and students Jio Vince Chua, Jerwin Samala and Mark Jayson Gutierrez.

 

For the network track, STI College received the top prize with their instructor Ms. Beronika Peña and students Roy Molod Jr., Renante Burgos Jr. and Mharjon Abante.

 

Taking home the first place accolades were Mapua University for the cloud track and the Cebu Institute of Technology – University for the network category. The Mapua team is represented by instructor Mr. Dionis A. Padilla and students Claudette Jean de Pano, Roberto Santos Jr. and Juan Gabriel Potestades. On the other hand, the CIT team is led by Ms. Larmie S. Feliscuzo with students Jasper Ching, Arriane Yu and Arjayl Martel.

 

The winning teams will represent the Philippines in the Asia Pacific round for an opportunity to compete in the Huawei ICT Competition Global Finals.

 

In his speech during the awarding ceremony, Todd Liu, President of Huawei Philippines Enterprise Business Group, expressed his deep appreciation for the continued participation of Filipino ICT students, teachers and universities in the annual global competition.

 

"Our mission remains the same, we created a non-profit platform for teachers and students all over the world to acquire and apply valuable skills. We were able to address and equip the next generation with the new needs of the industry by facilitating international exchange, communication and knowledge transfer," Liu said, affirming Huawei's commitment to developing the ICT talent ecosystem.

 

Hon. Prospero De Vera, Chairman of the Commission on Higher Education, recognized Huawei's contribution to the Philippine education sector, saying: "CHED has been working closely with Huawei to support innovative technological interventions in education during the pandemic. Huawei ICT Academy champions and cultivates the skills of students, turning professional application into real-world ICT change through ICT." He added that CHED "will continue to thrive under the restrictions of the pandemic through programs from the ICT community."

 

Sharing his insights with the attendees, Dr. William Torres, touted as the "Father of the Philippine Internet," said "students have honed more skills and gained more knowledge through the Huawei ICT Competition."

 

He explained that through this process, students learn more about the real-life application of ICT. "More importantly, students benefit from being exposed to how ICT is deployed to solve problems in the real world. They are fit for the future after undergoing industry-oriented training," he said.

 

Huawei ICT Academy holds the ICT Competition to enable students to improve their practical capabilities and boost their competitiveness in the job market. The Academy provides free certification training to professors and students to cultivate local ICT talents and help accelerate the country's ICT industry development.

 

Huawei established the ICT Academy in the Philippines in 2019 with only 10 university partners. To date, Huawei ICT Academy has more than 50 university members in the Philippines. From 600 students certified in 2020, Huawei Philippines hopes to certify 5,000 within 5 years. Huawei's program also extends to trainers from different universities across the country.

 

 

Enabling Data-Driven Economies from the Philippines

 

Data is created, copied, stored and consumed at an ever-increasing rate, prompting an explosion in data growth globally. According to a recent IDC Global DataSphere report, the amount of data created and replicated is expected to reach around 180ZB by 2025*¹. A super-information society is birthed from the convergence of physical space and internet driving interconnectivity of all web-enabled things, on-demand availability of computer system resources and the emergence of artificial intelligence to enable machines to learn and carry out tasks by replicating human intelligence.  

 

*1 IDC, Worldwide Global DataSphere Forecast, 2021–2025: The World Keeps Creating More Data — Now, What Do We Do with It All?, Doc # US46410421, March 2021

One of core digital infrastructures are data centers which are scattered throughout the world. These trends have fuelled to a higher demand for data management and storage utilization solutions to be reliable, secure, power-efficient and at the same time provide high-density storage capacities in an increasingly distributed workload environment.  

 

At the core of these data centers are nearline Hard Disk Drives (HDD), which are the most cost-effective performance storage medium available in the market. Data storage comes in primarily three broad categories: offline, nearline and online.  While nearline storage is not immediately available, it can easily be made online quickly without human intervention.

 

 

One of leading global technology companies in the storage industry is Toshiba. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of HDD products that addresses the storage needs of enterprise, data center, surveillance, and client markets. Toshiba enterprise HDDs are categorised in three main areas: “Enterprise Performance HDDs” for traditional mission critical servers and storage systems, “Enterprise Capacity HDDs” for entry servers and storage system for business critical workload, and “Cloud-Scale Capacity HDDs” for hyperscale data centers. In 1CQ21, Toshiba shipped at that time a new nearline HDD and exabyte record of 2.11 million units and 25.6 exabytes, respectively, delivering an average capacity of 12.1TB per unit, which outpaced the industry average*².

*2 IDC, Worldwide 1Q21 HDD Shipment Results and Four-Quarter Forecast Update, Doc # US47667520, May 2021

 

Toshiba’s Strategic Data Storage Manufacturing Facility in the Philippines

 

The company’s key manufacturing facility is based in the Philippines. Toshiba Information Equipment (Philippines), Inc. (TIP) began operations in 1996 and with about 12,000 employees, the company has been instrumental in providing data storage solutions for over 20 years.

A hard disk drive is produced under high precision manufacturing and ultra-clean environments. Since the hard disk demands high speeds of rotation and the head is in close proximity to its platter, nearline HDDs go through an extensive manufacturing process. One of key parts of a hard disk drive is the recording media. With multiple recording media stacked with precision to allow efficient reading and writing of data, a nearline hard disk drive including recording head, media, electronics and firmware is carefully assembled and tested rigorously under extreme environments such as pressure and temperature in test chambers to ensure quality in the final delivery.   

 

 

With the increasing demand for nearline HDDs, the company has invested to support large-scale production, ramping up output to meet the industry needs. This is with the consideration to minimize wastage of raw materials and maximize technological resources to bring about total cost efficiency and sustainable manufacturing.  

 

What sets Toshiba Apart

Toshiba’s engineers are vital to keep the manufacturing facility going and ensuring business continuity as far as possible.

John Mark Guilaran, Engineer, TIP’s Enterprise Production Engineering division shares, “To meet the increasing Nearline HDD demand, TIP expanded its production capacity by setting up multiple automated lines, while improving the productivity and efficiency of existing lines. We are constantly building a skilled labor force through knowledge transfer, trainings, resource sharing and close collaboration, especially with our Storage Products Division counterparts in Yokohama, Japan. Two automated lines capable of producing 200,000 units of Nearline HDDs per month were set up with minimal supervisory support from Japan.  Having a strong desire to learn and ‘never give up’ attitude are our key strengths. We see every challenge as an opportunity to create, innovate, learn and grow.”

 

Gerald Balingasa, Engineer, HDD Design Support Center adds, “TIP, like any other company, is affected by the COVID 19 pandemic. Prioritization and resourcefulness are important to address the limited access to transportation and rollout of new model evaluation activities. We once again proved to be very resilient despite the challenges. We prioritize the health of our employees, customers and community around us and mandated health protocols are quickly adopted and new regulations are put in place. Our determination to achieve our targets while ensuring everyone’s safety has given us continued success amid the pandemic. The pandemic has taught me to never underestimate the value of camaraderie, understanding life’s unforeseeable moments and making the most out of the situation.  Staying true to TIP’s policy of ‘Simple, Speed and Flexibility’.”

 

 

Next-generation Data Storage Technology

The most recent development is Toshiba’s first HDD models with energy-assisted magnetic recording. The MG09 Series features Toshiba’s third-generation, 9-disk Helium-sealed design and Toshiba’s innovative Flux Control – Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (FC-MAMR) technology, to advance Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) density to 2TB per disk, achieving a total capacity of 18TB.

TIP’s HDD Design Support Center collaborated with Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation’s Storage Products Division, to carry out the evaluation process and data analysis, making it ready for mass production.

 Hiroshi Okamura, President of TIP^*3 remarks, “Philippines is a strategic manufacturing location for Toshiba to deliver our data storage solutions to the global market that demands large capacity storage in high speeds. We offer an extensive range of products -from mobile HDDs in notebooks, car navigation and game consoles, high capacity storage solutions for servers systems to nearline series in data centers to support mission critical applications. Toshiba Information Equipment (Philippines), Inc. is leveraging our extensive capabilities as a digital storage provider and well-supported by a highly capable talent pool to deliver customer-focused solutions and innovation to our customers globally.”