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Huawei Launches New Software Brand for Intelligent Driving

FILE PHOTO: The logo of the Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is seen outside its headquarters in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, April 17, 2012. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The logo of the Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is seen outside its headquarters in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, April 17, 2012. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo
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Huawei Launches New Software Brand for Intelligent Driving

FILE PHOTO: The logo of the Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is seen outside its headquarters in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, April 17, 2012. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The logo of the Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is seen outside its headquarters in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, April 17, 2012. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

Chinese tech company Huawei unveiled on Wednesday a new software brand for intelligent driving, marking its latest push to become a major player in the electric vehicle industry.
The new brand Qiankun, symbolizing a combination of heaven and the Kunlun Mountains, plans to provide self-driving systems involving the driving chassis, audio and driver's seat, Jin Yuzhi, CEO of Huawei's Intelligent Automotive Solution (IAS) business unit, said during an event ahead of the Beijing auto show.
"2024 will be the first year for mass commercialization of smart driving and the cumulative number of cars on road equipped with the Huawei self-driving system will top 500,000 by the year-end," Reuters quoted Jin as saying.
He also expected within a year more than 10 car models adopting Huawei’s Qiankun system would hit the market.
The Shenzhen-based tech conglomerate launched its smart car unit in 2019 with the aim that it could become the equivalent of German automotive supplier Bosch of the intelligent EV era and supply software and components to partners.
Huawei said in November that the unit would be spun off into a new company which would receive the unit's core technologies and resources and take investment from partners such as automaker Changan Auto.
It has also unveiled seven EV models in partnership with Chinese automakers so far and they are selling well, Jin said.
They include three Aito brand models under partnership with Seres, the Luxeed S7 sedan co-developed with Chery , two models with Changan Auto-backed Avatr and one with Beijing Automotive Group (BAIC)-owned Arcfox.
On Tuesday, Huawei also unveiled the S9 sedan, the first model under the premium Stelato brand it launched with BAIC.
Its diversification into EVs comes amid an intensifying price war in the world's largest auto market, which is grappling with slowing sales momentum and deepening overcapacity concerns as more than 40 brands vie for consumer attention.
Earlier this month, Huawei-backed Aito offered discounts of up to 20,000 yuan ($2,760) on its new M7 SUVs until the end of April.

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Technology

China Bets on AI Weather Forecasting as Extreme Weather Intensifies

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a man walks against strong wind and rain as Typhoon Dolphin makes landfall at Dongsha community in Yuhuan, Taizhou, eastern China's Zhejiang Province on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2026. (Xinhua via AP)
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a man walks against strong wind and rain as Typhoon Dolphin makes landfall at Dongsha community in Yuhuan, Taizhou, eastern China's Zhejiang Province on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2026. (Xinhua via AP)
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China Bets on AI Weather Forecasting as Extreme Weather Intensifies

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a man walks against strong wind and rain as Typhoon Dolphin makes landfall at Dongsha community in Yuhuan, Taizhou, eastern China's Zhejiang Province on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2026. (Xinhua via AP)
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a man walks against strong wind and rain as Typhoon Dolphin makes landfall at Dongsha community in Yuhuan, Taizhou, eastern China's Zhejiang Province on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2026. (Xinhua via AP)

As meteorologists tracked Typhoon Dolphin's path toward China in recent days, a new generation of artificial intelligence weather models worked alongside traditional forecasting systems, highlighting China's emergence as a leading player in the race to improve weather prediction.

Chinese-developed systems, including Shanghai AI Laboratory-developed Fengwu, Huawei's Pangu and Fudan University's Fuxi, are among a handful of AI forecasting models that researchers say can generate forecasts much faster than conventional systems while matching or surpassing them on some measures of accuracy.

For decades, weather prediction has relied on numerical models running on supercomputers that simulate atmospheric ‌physics. AI models ‌instead learn patterns from vast archives of historical weather observations and ‌can ⁠produce forecasts in ⁠a fraction of the time.

The technology is increasingly being tested during typhoon season in East Asia, where even small improvements in track forecasts can help authorities better prepare for flooding, organize evacuations and manage potential transport disruptions.

The rise of AI weather forecasting has created a new arena of competition among technology companies, research institutes and meteorological agencies, with China emerging as one of the field's leading players.

Among the best-known AI forecasting systems globally are Google's GraphCast and ⁠GenCast, Nvidia-backed FourCastNet and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts' AI ‌Forecasting System, known as AIFS.

'PEOPLE NEED INFORMATION'

Fengwu attracted ‌attention after developers reported it outperformed GraphCast across roughly 80% of evaluated weather variables and extended ‌skillful global medium-range forecasts beyond 10 days.

"With more extreme weather, people need information to ‌make decisions, both local governments, the national government, also the average person, farmers and fisherman," said Sun Zhi, the CTO of Techwind, the company responsible for Fengwu's industrial applications.

"So we want to help provide better information so people can make decisions."

While AI systems are becoming an increasingly important complement to ‌conventional forecasting because of their speed and lower computing costs, they are unlikely to fully replace traditional weather models in the ⁠near future.

According to ⁠Techwind's Sun, AI models are already capable of predicting the path of typhoons — five days out from Dolphin's landfall Fengwu predicted the time and place it would hit mainland China to within 30 minutes and 30 km (19 miles) — but they still lag conventional weather forecasts in predicting the intensity of a storm and they are still untested predicting major climate developments.

"If we predict a climate change event 18 months in advance, people won't believe it," Sun said.

"They need to know it's reliable. We need to do years of scientific research before people trust us when we say there will be an El Nino event or we say the changing temperature on the sea's surface will affect the breeding cycle of fish."

As the tech forecasters work to make their systems ever more sophisticated, the concurrent use of both methods is likely to continue for some time.

Technology

Intel Raises $20 Billion from Upsized Share Sale

The Intel logo is displayed on computer screens at SIGGRAPH 2017 in Los Angeles, California, US, July 31, 2017. (Reuters)
The Intel logo is displayed on computer screens at SIGGRAPH 2017 in Los Angeles, California, US, July 31, 2017. (Reuters)
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Intel Raises $20 Billion from Upsized Share Sale

The Intel logo is displayed on computer screens at SIGGRAPH 2017 in Los Angeles, California, US, July 31, 2017. (Reuters)
The Intel logo is displayed on computer screens at SIGGRAPH 2017 in Los Angeles, California, US, July 31, 2017. (Reuters)

Intel raised $20 billion from an upsized share offering on Tuesday, as it looks to fund the costly build-out of its chip contract manufacturing business by cashing in on a stock surge fueled by its turnaround efforts.

Once a dominant force in the global chip industry, Intel is investing heavily in new facilities and advanced packaging capabilities as it seeks to challenge industry leaders such as TSMC in contract chip manufacturing.

Intel priced the offering at $95 per share, which was a discount of 2.6% from the previous close. The chipmaker said ‌on Monday it aimed ‌to raise $15 billion through the share sale.

Bloomberg ‌first ⁠reported the size ⁠of the upsized offering.

Intel's shares fell more than 4% on Monday. As of Monday, the stock has nearly tripled so far this year, outperforming rivals AMD and Nvidia and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index's nearly 75% rise.

Several analysts have said Intel's surging share price has increased the chances of an equity raise to help fund its expansion plans.

"As a capital-intensive business ⁠that went a long way to wrecking its own balance ‌sheet and prospects by focusing ‌on financial engineering rather than physical engineering, courtesy of $82 billion of share buybacks in the ‌2010s, it makes perfect sense for Intel to raise money, especially ‌after a five-fold increase in the stock price since last August," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

The shift toward AI agents has powered demand for central processing units beyond Intel's manufacturing capacity, prompting the chipmaker to raise its ‌capital expenditure forecast for this year from $18 billion to $20 billion in July.

It also committed to high-volume production ⁠of chips ⁠using its 14A manufacturing process in 2028, after previously warning the technology could be shelved without a major external customer.

Its foundry unit has won Tesla as a 14A customer and optimism for another marquee client grew after US President Donald Trump said Apple would make processors with Intel, though neither company confirmed it.

Last month, Intel announced a €5 billion ($5.77 billion) investment to upgrade and expand chip manufacturing in Ireland, a project that represents more than 25% of its planned 2026 capital spending.

JPMorgan Securities, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Global Markets are acting as joint book-running managers.

Technology

SDAIA Launches AI Creativity Boot Camp to Reshape Digital Content Future

The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) launched on Monday the AI Creativity Boot Camp. (SPA)
The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) launched on Monday the AI Creativity Boot Camp. (SPA)
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SDAIA Launches AI Creativity Boot Camp to Reshape Digital Content Future

The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) launched on Monday the AI Creativity Boot Camp. (SPA)
The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) launched on Monday the AI Creativity Boot Camp. (SPA)

The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) launched on Monday the AI Creativity Boot Camp, bringing together leading creative content creators from across the Kingdom, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

The program aims to enhance participants’ capabilities and enable them to leverage advanced technological skills to develop innovative ideas and digital content. It also seeks to keep pace with the rapid technological transformations taking place in creative industries worldwide.

The boot camp comes in response to the rapidly growing role of artificial intelligence technologies in the media and content creation sectors. It aims to enable participants to harness the capabilities of these technologies to accelerate production processes, improve the quality of outputs, and open new avenues for innovation.

These efforts seek to provide Saudi creatives with a sustainable competitive advantage in the modern media landscape.

The boot camp's training program focuses on developing participants' practical skills across the various stages of content creation, from generating ideas to producing high-impact final outputs. It also emphasizes the responsible and ethical use of emerging technologies while preserving human creativity as a fundamental pillar in shaping messages and generating lasting intellectual impact.