Enterprises must generate value from the cloud – Huawei

By 2025, all enterprise information technology (IT) solutions will be “cloudified” and more than 85% of enterprise applications will be cloud-based, says Huawei CEO Ken Hu.

Speaking at the inaugural Huawei Connect event, in Shanghai, China, this week, Hu stated that every company would integrate its core business with the cloud and would be on the look-out for the cloud solutions that suit them best.

He emphasised the importance for businesses of generating value from the cloud through three measures.

Firstly, it is important for enterprises to change their mindsets around the role of information and communications technology (ICT) by treating ICT as a production system instead of a support system and proactively using technology to redesign their production processes.

Secondly, enterprises should rethink talent and equip their employees with basic ICT knowledge, particularly cloud technology applications.

Finally, enterprises should think big and act small, making headway with tactical, gradual improvements that build lasting confidence in new technology and the success it brings.

Hu, meanwhile, compared devices to "feelers" that give all things the ability to sense their environments, highlighting that ICT would be the cornerstone of an “intelligent world”. Networks will connect everything and the cloud will be the driving source of intelligence in the future.

Hu predicted that, in the next five to ten years, smart devices would automatically adapt to a number of use scenarios, giving people and devices the ability to sense their surroundings, with smart devices acting as the entry point to the intelligent world of the future.

"Optical and wireless networks will provide ubiquitous, ultra-broadband connections. In the meantime, interconnected computers spread across the planet will aggregate vast amounts of data, forming a 'digital brain' in the cloud.

“This digital brain will evolve in real-time and it will never age, providing intelligence that can be called upon at any time by people and machines [through] high-speed connections and devices," he explained.

Hu noted that enterprises were the main players in the cloud era, as solution innovation would revolve around their specific needs.

In addition to individual solutions, he pointed out that Huawei stresses that the cloud ecosystem must be developed around creating value for customers and that every organisation within the ecosystem must contribute to its own unique value.