Huawei has unveiled its Global OpenLab Program in South Africa at its flagship event, the Huawei Eco-Connect Conference, held in Sandton this week. Huawei also outlined its strategic development of 15 new upcoming OpenLabs and investment plan for the next three years. The new OpenLab, which will be based at the Vulani Office Park in Johannesburg, will enable Huawei to work with various industry partners in South Africa to create customer-centric and innovative solutions that enable digital transformation, while promoting industry ecosystem development. The first two joint innovation areas of Huawei’s Johannesburg Openlab will focus on public safety and smart grid solutions, which will feature the development of advanced analytics for both police and power grid operations, as well as power IoT and integration of Huawei’s communication module into local smart metres.

The OpenLab in Johannesburg is one of 7 new Huawei OpenLabs planned for 2017. Other upcoming installations will occur in cities such as London, Paris, France, Moscow and Russia. This will bring the total number of OpenLabs to 12 and by the end of 2019; Huawei plans to increase this number to 20. Over the next three years, Huawei will allocate nearly 1 000 ICT talents from around the world and invest a total of $200 million into the program.

Victor Yu, President of Industry Marketing & Solution Department of Huawei Enterprise Business Group, said: “Each OpenLab addresses the needs of its local market, and harnesses local talent and technology assets. For example in Munich, Germany, we are working on joint innovation projects, conducting simulation tests and researching on connected cars with German automotive enterprises. We work with outstanding local companies to integrate their capabilities into Huawei's global value chain and promote these capabilities across the world, helping to enhance the competitiveness of local ICT industries.”

To date, Huawei has built and operated OpenLabs in 5 cities including Suzhou, China; Munich, Germany; Mexico City, Mexico; Singapore; and Dubai, UAE. These OpenLabs are facilitating joint innovation and solution launches with more than 400 partners across Smart City, finance, transportation, energy, manufacturing and media sectors. Globally, Huawei has established partnerships with nearly 80 solutions partners. Various large enterprises and government departments are implementing solutions developed by Huawei’s OpenLabs.

The Global OpenLab Program is aligned with Huawei Enterprise Business Group’s “Platform + Ecosystem” strategy. This strategy centres on collaborating with partners and customers to develop innovative, differentiated and leading industry-specific solutions that enable open, elastic, flexible, and secure platforms to drive enterprise digital transformation. Huawei is focused on facilitating a digital transformation ecosystem to implement joint innovations and expand the ecosystem in terms of industry alliances, business alliances, developer platforms, and open-source communities.

“We hope the Huawei OpenLab will create a new model for joint innovation. Subsequently, we would like to invite partners to work together with Huawei in this initiative,” says Stan Qiu, Energy Sector Director of the Huawei Enterprise Business Group in Southern Africa.
“Huawei will provide the data centre facility, hardware and software infrastructure and technical team whilst the partner will contribute with ideas, products and human resources. By working together, we can enable new ideas to be verified more quickly, allow for more agile industry innovation and more efficient proof of concepts creation. The ultimate goal is to transform the lab into a customer experience centre and generate more opportunities for all ecosystem players,” adds Qiu.

Huawei is committed to cooperating with its customers and partners in building ICT platforms featuring Cloud, Pipe, and Device collaboration to create symbiotic, vibrant and sustainable ecosystems. Huawei will continue to work with its partners to explore new ways to address digital transformation challenges in the new ICT era.