We Are All Stars on the Road Forward

On a dark moonless night, a fisherman's lantern bursts into a river of stars.

Over the past six years, we have experienced countless moments of darkness, frustration, and bewilderment. But we gave it our all and have come to understand the true meaning of conviction. Time and again, we've seen the impossible made possible. And we've been very fortunate, gaining the trust and support of a growing number of fellow travelers along the way. This goes to show that the light of a single fishing boat, no matter how dim and lonely, can burst into a sky full of stars – a bold and brilliant galaxy.

This past year, we've been blessed with the comradery, warmth, and encouragement of countless people, on countless occasions, from countless locations around the world. We can feel the true strength of a global community, whether it comes from innovative customer applications, the collective dedication of our partners, the relentless efforts of our fellow explorers, the sheer grit of our employees, or the ongoing support of their families. We came together and did all we could to accomplish something extraordinary. Some planted beans. Some helped them sprout. Some turned them into tofu. Together, we form a striking tapestry.

With appreciation for what has passed, I look forward to a brighter future. Here, allow me to express my heartfelt gratitude to all of you.

I. First, I'd like to thank our customers for sticking by our side. By innovating together, we made small steps in each industry. Combined, these have driven a giant leap in productivity.

Led by our customers, we have dived deep into their business scenarios, innovating together to solve their pain points, boost productivity, and create both commercial and social value.

AI is spreading throughout the production systems of all industries, becoming an invaluable assistant to workers.

In a large iron and steel plant in Shanghai, they are using AI to predict the temperature of blast furnaces. This helps workers assess conditions in the furnace more accurately and take immediate action when the system identifies a potential issue.

A manufacturer in Chongqing has started using AI to revamp its logistics, identifying the best possible solutions for managing vehicles, purchase orders, goods, and transportation routes from among tens of billions of combinations. This has helped increase vehicle scheduling efficiency by 51%, reduce vehicle loading times by 41%, raise load factors by 9.6%, and improve per-capita efficiency by 50%.

In South Africa, with the help of optical sensing and machine vision technologies, railway patrollers can promptly handle abnormalities and ensure more secure and efficient railway operations.

Carriers are actively embracing innovative AI applications. In particular, 5G New Calling has become a brilliant rising star.

In São Paulo, Brazil, R&D expert Zhou Ruili made a 5G New Call with a local customer. It was the first 5G New Call in the Americas, and she spoke English while the customer spoke Portuguese. With the calling system's intelligent translation functionality, Zhou was able to seamlessly communicate with the customer. Throughout the call, they could see each other's virtual avatars and facial expressions. Excited by this new form of groundbreaking interactivity, the customer repeatedly described it as simply unbelievable.

This solution is the first of its kind, originally launched by a Chinese carrier. Making full use of its 5G/5.5G core network – the largest and most advanced in the world – the carrier added UHD, intelligence, and interactive functionality to their traditional voice calling services. To date, 5G New Calling has reinvented the call experience for over 100 million users.

Carriers are also using new technology to deliver a new experience across mountains, rivers, and oceans.

The Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze in Sichuan province, China, is a plateau that lies more than 4,000 meters above sea level. It's a place that Lobsang, an O&M field engineer, has been committed to for years. A pair of old but solid mountaineering boots have become his most trusted companions as he scales one mountain after another to set up and troubleshoot mobile network equipment.

As Packet Transport Networks (PTNs) and Slicing Packet Networks (SPNs) converge faster, our customer is able to adopt new technology more rapidly, provide more secure services, and significantly boost O&M efficiency. Today, Lobsang can complete complex network operations faster than ever before. The time needed to replace a single device and switch services has been reduced from days to hours. At the same time, service recovery capabilities after fiber cuts have significantly improved, and our customer's communications networks are more resilient than ever.

Multiple carriers have also launched 5G live-streaming service packages to meet growing demand for traffic-heavy HD video with zero frame freezing. During the lychee harvest season in the Zengcheng District of Guangzhou, live-streamers showcased the entire harvest process as they strode through the fields, significantly boosting sales.

In a remote Brazilian community in the Amazon Basin, 400 families shared a single payphone. After overcoming all manner of difficulties with transportation, installation, and construction, a local carrier set up a 4G network, giving local residents ready access to information from other parts of the world, online education, and medical assistance. The digital divide is gradually disappearing for this community.

As the adoption of digital and intelligent technology picks up, decarbonization is lighting up deserts and mountains.

Along the Red Sea coast in the Middle East, we helped a customer build the world's largest microgrid plant, featuring a 400-megawatt PV system and a 1.3-gigawatt-hour energy storage system. This plant will fully power a nearby city with pure renewable energy. By using a number of key intelligent technologies, such as large-scale grid forming, strong fault ride-through (FRT) capabilities, self-synchronizing black starts (for restoring 100-kilometer power grids in mere minutes), and active safety, this customer can better ensure the stability and reliability of their microgrid.

In Western China, the construction of the G318 Sichuan-Tibet Ultra-fast Charging Green Corridor has thrust the most beautiful road in China into the supercharging era. This corridor allows EV owners to supercharge their vehicles as quickly as filling a tank with gas, helping more people enjoy low-carbon travel across Sichuan and Tibet.

II. I'd like to thank our ecosystem partners for fighting and exploring alongside us.

Ecosystems are fertile ground, and every partner and every developer plays a critical role as we work to build a flourishing community for all. And the success of the ecosystem depends on the growth and success of each individual stakeholder.

Operating systems are at the heart of digital infrastructure, and our partners are working with us to bring new vitality to openEuler.

One Chinese carrier started researching a cloud operating system back in 2015. At the critical moment when this carrier was denied access to open-source communities outside China, openEuler stepped up to the plate.

Migrating from one cloud OS to another is difficult, time-consuming, and complex work. So the carrier formed a team with the openEuler community to develop a migration tool. This tool helped ensure a smooth and efficient migration – which ended up being more than three times faster than system redeployment.

To date, the carrier's cloud OS, powered by openEuler, has been used in many domains such as government, finance, education, healthcare, industry, energy, transportation, and manufacturing, laying a secure and reliable foundation for computing power services across a wide range of sectors.

As we strive to build intelligent connectivity for all things, 2024 was a critical year for HarmonyOS NEXT, with the launch of the HarmonyOS ecosystem development program.

The HarmonyOS ecosystem development program has gained support from a wide range of industry partners. What we've managed to achieve in the past year took other operating systems more than 10 years. The sheer speed is truly incredible.

When the HarmonyOS ecosystem development program was launched, the developer of a popular Chinese app with hundreds of millions of active monthly users joined up. They brought together more than 100 of their top engineers to work with Huawei's HarmonyOS team. In six short months, the joint team managed to overcome a number of key technical challenges, enabling the app to run smoothly on HarmonyOS NEXT while enriching overall user experience.

Open-source communities are ideal for cultivating software ecosystems, and a great starting point for developers who dream big.

"I'm a developer and also do odd jobs," said Feng. He had always dreamed of becoming a programmer. He studied software programming, but couldn't find a job after graduation. So he had to do odd jobs like delivering food and even recycling plastic bottles just to make ends meet. However, his passion for programming never waned.

A few years ago, Feng came across the open-source community for MindSpore. With access to hardware, software, and expert resources, he immersed himself in the MindSpore community. He took part in multiple competitions and won awards. He also picked up Python again, and his passion for programming reignited.

Through hard work and perseverance, Feng has become an outstanding developer and advocate in the MindSpore community. He continues to support other developers on the platform while building a better life for himself.

III. I'd like to thank our industry partners for lighting the way forward.

As the global ICT industry transforms, our suppliers have stuck with us through thick and thin, providing us with unwavering support and encouragement. We're on a new journey, and suppliers are our partners in innovation, working alongside us to turn technological dreams into reality.

A hybrid team overcame the challenges of heat dissipation in small spaces.

Large AI models require enormous computing power, as well as ultra-large-scale clusters with a huge number of chips and high-bandwidth memory.

For a period of time, the performance of our Tiancheng AI cluster system and chips was held back by a handful of tough engineering challenges. In response, we formed a hybrid team consisting of members from a dozen Huawei labs and engineers from partner organizations. This team came up with innovative ways to overcome physical limitations with math, break the limits of Moore's Law through non-Moore's means, and supplement individual technological points with systems. With these new approaches, the team has pushed the boundaries in engineering domains like heat dissipation, power supply, high-speed transmission, and high-density deployment, as well as the board-level reliability of large chips.

Take heat dissipation, for example. The engineers identified dozens of factors that affect heat management, and then adopted a systems-engineering approach to develop hot stream models for identifying the optimal combination of parameters. After more than 100 rounds of high-throughput iterative testing, the team developed cold plates that offered low thermal resistance and high voltage resistance, helping us establish an overall leadership position in systems-level competitiveness.

With the support of all partners, we developed a trifold smartphone after five years of relentless effort.

Trifold smartphones have stringent screen requirements. The screen has to bend seamlessly in either direction, resisting compression when folded inward and tension when folded outward. The individual screens also need a thinner, stronger hinge to support a tiny bending radius and provide high-impact resistance. To guarantee a superior user experience while maintaining a slim profile, the screens also need super-thin and flexible UTG glass. But this presents a major challenge because the glass needed is roughly one-third the thickness of a piece of paper.

Starting with nothing but sand, Huawei worked with partners to test more than 100 formulas and perform more than 1,000 simulations and experiments. After melting the formulas at 1,600°C, followed by more than 90 precision processing procedures, we managed to create the industry's largest-ever, super-thin (30 microns), and flexible UTG glass, which supports reliable inward and outward folds while delivering high strength and flexibility.

Brilliant insights from Northeast China helped us accurately reproduce true colors with the cameras on our latest flagship smartphones.

The Ultra Aperture XMAGE Camera was the product of technological innovation by two university professors from Northeast China. Both professors have dedicated their careers to bringing cutting-edge multi-spectrum technologies to a broader range of domains. Their team helped us solve a key technical challenge with our smartphone cameras.

After many experiments and a number of breakthroughs, the resulting Ultra Aperture Camera was launched on HUAWEI Mate 70 Series smartphones. Equipped with 1,500,000 spectral channels, the camera can accurately measure full-spectrum data across a wider range of spectrum, and significantly increase the accuracy of color reproduction. This produces incredible true-to-life photos.

The two professors started their company in an old industrial base in Northeast China. Before joining forces with Huawei, the company only had a few employees. But as we worked together to achieve more accurate color reproduction, the company has been expanding nonstop.

Our breakthroughs with the trifold screen and Ultra Aperture XMAGE Camera epitomize the rapid rise of China's electronics industry. Innovation after innovation reflect a vibrant industrial value chain.

Huawei has shared our 30+ years of R&D experience and innovation capabilities with our partners. And our partners have dedicated a great number of technical experts and field employees to overcoming challenges and constantly improving quality. This has helped drive the rise of China's electronics industry.

We firmly believe that shared success is possible only through openness and collaboration, and that progress itself can only be achieved through efficient coordination.

IV. I'd like to thank the explorers who absorb the energy of the universe to tackle the challenges of our times.

We are in an age of rapid change – one rife with challenges and opportunities. To tackle the challenges we face today, we need to be open-minded and enterprising, and to keep looking up to the stars.

Chaspark connects the whole world – it's a flourishing garden for academic exchange.

The Chaspark science and technology website aims to bring together academic and technical resources from around the world. It has a patent query section that offers free access to 190 million patent records. It also provides online access to over 8,000 academic conferences, and is home to more than 570 industry challenges, 300 contest problems, and 10 open-source projects.

University teachers actively propose solutions to the shared industry challenges posted on the website, and those who come up with truly ingenious solutions are presented with a Spark Award. Mr. Yang, a teacher from Peking University, has received five Spark Awards to date, and has collaborated with Huawei on 14 projects. As a founding member of the Huawei-Peking University Innovation Lab for Computing and Network Convergence, Mr. Yang also participates in the lab's work.

Another teacher, Mr. Li, from Xi'an Jiaotong University, has also made significant contributions, winning four Spark Awards as an individual and two together with his team. Reflecting on his experience, Li said, "Huawei's challenges have inspired me, helping me focus my attention and resources on specific research directions."

Those who embrace talent will shape the future.

The International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) is an algorithmic programming contest for college students. All ICPC contestants have a wealth of experience in tackling world-class problems. The contest itself helps refine their perseverance and resilience.

Matheus Aires, a former civil engineer from Brazil, returned to computer science to pursue his teenage dreams. He enjoys immersing himself in the world of algorithms, often losing track of time when doing so. At the first ICPC Challenge Championship powered by Huawei, Matheus was captivated by the contest problem and ultimately won the grand prize. After joining Huawei, he quickly became proficient in database kernels, playing a pivotal role in feature development and problem solving.

Maciej, Jan, and Kostiantyn from our Warsaw-based research team work closely together as mentor and mentees. Together, they managed to optimize the recompression of JPEG images. Their solution not only greatly boosted the performance of recompression algorithms, but also led to a higher data reduction ratio, setting a new industry benchmark.

Mathematics is the key to many problems, and the bridge between academia and industry.

Dr. Zhou Zhaoqi, a PhD in Mathematics, is a technical expert who has solved many database challenges. She is also a Gold Medal Preacher known for building ecosystem influence, and an open-minded Science & Technology Ambassador who is always keen to learn from others. Her team has made multiple key technological breakthroughs and worked on multiple patents, contributing greatly to improvements in database performance.

Dr. Zhou has also joined efforts to enhance the influence of the Kunpeng ecosystem. She has live-streamed classes at nine universities, where she teaches people how to get started with openGauss kernel development.

She initiated the "Forum on Innovations and Challenges Surrounding Vector Databases in the Era of Large Models" at Huawei's Sanyapo Campus, inviting dozens of mathematics professors and senior fellows to exchange ideas with Huawei's GaussDB experts. This forum laid the groundwork for a collaborative research project aimed at exploring new mathematical theories and algorithms for vector databases.

When we're exposed to a broader world, we become better versions of ourselves. More and more young people are changing their lives with ICT knowledge, and many are shaping the digital futures of their home countries.

Huawei works with more than 3,000 universities in over 110 countries and regions. Through the Huawei ICT Academy, we train more than 300,000 students every year, and many of these students have become pillars of digital development in their own communities.

James, Matimu, and Dickson from Tanzania's University of Dar es Salaam reached the World Finals at the most recent Huawei ICT Competition. They took home the grand prize, which was presented to them by the Tanzanian Prime Minister himself.

After winning an award at a Huawei ICT Competition, Hisham Barakat from Bahrain is now studying AI at the School of Computer Science in Peking University. He said, "I've seen a broader world and have become a better version of myself."

In Europe, Huawei has held the DigitALL Night event for many years, with over 2,000 local young attendees at our most recent event. It gives budding professionals the chance to exchange ideas with their industry peers. DigitALL Night has become a premier digital event that allows young people to better understand cutting-edge science and technology, improve their digital acumen, and plan their future development.

V. I'd like to thank our employees and their loved ones, who often work behind the scenes, but are also our heroes.

Every day, countless Huawei employees work on the front lines around the world, dedicating themselves to the development of the global ICT industry. Though their stories may be unknown to many of us, they are true heroes who deserve our respect.

Wang Honghui, who has worked in Xinjiang for 20 years, is one such hero.

In 2001, Wang left his hometown in Henan province and took a 40-hour train ride to Xinjiang to start his life at university. After graduation, Wang joined Huawei as a network assurance engineer. He began his career in Kuitun, a beautiful small city in Xinjiang, and has since crossed the vast expanses of Xinjiang on his own two feet. He has trekked across the snowy mountains in the north and Populus Euphratica forests in the south, and has braved the harsh conditions of scorching summers and freezing winters alike. Yet none of this fazed him.

With unwavering passion and perseverance, Wang studied and kept copious notes on almost every product configuration manual, reviewed technical problems encountered during project delivery, and gleaned valuable lessons from numerous case studies on network maintenance. Through these tireless efforts, Wang has grown from a complete greenhorn – one who needed support from his customers – into a highly respected, leading expert who now provides critical support to his customers. Over the course of more than two decades at Huawei, he has witnessed Xinjiang's evolution from 2G all the way to 5G.

Our people played a crucial role in supporting the network with the heaviest traffic in the world's hottest place.

In June 2024, around four million Muslims participated in the Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. From a networking perspective, this means a surge of data from four million sources all at the same time. A massive gathering and movement of people on this scale requires an extreme data traffic model that can't be found anywhere else in the world.

On June 11, Huawei's site O&M expert Yang Xiaobin led a team to Mecca. Their goal was to ensure the stable operations of Huawei-built wireless and microwave sites in areas along the pilgrimage.

Their first stop was Mina, a valley with more than 100,000 tents that could accommodate up to three million pilgrims. As soon as our engineers arrived, they began routine tours of all sites. Due to strict traffic controls in the valley, they had to get out of the car and walk. From mobile sites on mountain peaks to those scattered throughout the valley of tents, they worked from dawn to dusk, checking sites one by one in temperatures that could exceed 50°C.

As the sun set on June 15, Yang Xiaobin and seven other members of his team headed to their next stop despite an already busy day of work. They walked about 10 kilometers alongside millions of pilgrims to ensure network availability along the way. At 22:30, they finally reached their destination: Muzdalifah. Yang logged more than 40,000 steps on that single day, a new personal record. After seven days and six nights, we successfully completed our 20th Hajj assurance project, marking the 20th consecutive year that Huawei has helped ensure stable communications for the Hajj since 2005.

Our employees also won ten tough battles with focus and expertise, creating true value for the company.

Liu Yihong, our tax manager in Oman, paid daily visits to the tax authority for two consecutive weeks. She explained our business designs, logical frameworks, and common practices to tax officials in detail, and cleared their doubts one by one by citing tax rules. Ultimately, she reached a consensus with the tax authority on our technical solution.

In the Baghdad office, shielded by a bulletproof wall, Luo Kaidi held a proposal for a long-standing dispute over tax jurisdictions, still warm off the printer. This proposal took Luo and his team several months of tireless work. It received high recognition from the tax authority and led to the settlement of the dispute.

In Saudi Arabia, our tax manager Cui Wenxuan faced challenges head-on. He had professional discussions with the tax authority and managed to convince them to set clear rules for our company in multiple business scenarios. Backed with a wealth of experience, he was able to weather a difficult situation, predict possible risks, and take his expertise to the next level, eventually helping Huawei become the first Chinese company in Saudi Arabia to issue electronic invoices.

Data analyst Liu Kaiyin quickly made the transition from a GTS engineer to a tax audit data expert. By calling upon his extensive experience from the business side, he was able to find and check tens of thousands of sales documents, vouchers, and other documents by sifting through massive amounts of data to ensure the security of company assets.

An individual's effort adds up, but team effort multiplies. There are many similar stories about our tax managers around the world. In Kazakhstan, our tax manager ensured that the tax rates agreed upon by the Chinese and Kazakh governments were applied to our business transactions. In the Middle East and Central Asia, our tax manager claimed multiple successes in tax audits and tax rule certainty. In Jordan, our tax manager successfully concluded our first transfer pricing audit, which later became a best practice in the industry.

Our tax managers never stop striving for more. They successfully concluded ten tax audit and tax refund projects, guaranteeing the security of our company's funds and assets.

Over the past year, our team has flown more than 3.3 billion kilometers, enough to circle the earth over 82,000 times. We have left our mark on every corner of the globe, and stories like this abound.

For example, we have Yang Zhanghuang, a core network product manager in Congo, and Guo Shan, a product manager in Cote d'Ivoire. They took every opportunity to go above and beyond, improving communication materials in dimly-lit cars, office corridors, and damp stairways while swatting mosquitoes away.

In Paris, our 21-person onsite assurance team for a world-famous sports event was in a constant race against time. They had to solve a number of connectivity challenges to ensure that tens of millions of people could watch their favorite events over the smoothest possible streams. This team managed to deliver an uninterrupted streaming experience for 456 hours, setting a new record.

At MWC Barcelona 2024, a record high of 13,000 people visited Huawei's exhibition area. Our Smartcom team customized reception solutions for each batch of customers and each experience touchpoint. Their high-quality services covered every customer touchpoint, from off-site reception to indoor talks, delivering a smooth and personal experience.

In Mexico, when the state of Yucatán was hit by a Category-4 hurricane, our local rep office quickly mobilized resources to help our customer recover transmission and site power facilities, ultimately restoring communications.

Together with airline partners, our logistics team has created China's first-ever direct all-cargo flight route to Latin America. They overcame many unique challenges, including obtaining air traffic rights, arranging stopovers, and organizing the distribution of goods. They have also opened a direct passenger flight route between China and Latin America.

In addition, thanks to careful planning and multiple rehearsals by our administrative team, more than 24,000 R&D personnel successfully moved from our Shanghai Jinqiao campus to the new Lianqiu Lake campus in only four weekends. This opens up a new chapter for our R&D team and will help them succeed through innovation.

Stories like this are touching, and their power will endure.

Here, I would like to give a special thanks to all our loved ones for their quiet and unfailing support. All of our achievements and successes would be impossible without them. They are the brightest stars in the night sky.

Teng Jiliang is based in Nigeria, and he didn't have much time to spend with his 18-month-old daughter. That is, until she and her mother moved out to Nigeria to be with him. After they arrived, the family started visiting the seaside on weekends, where they would walk along the beach and enjoy the gentle Atlantic breeze. They attended all sorts of festivals and events, and even started a small vegetable garden to grow little tastes from home, like fish mint, bird's eye chili, and tomatoes. With a little water and care, their garden has flourished. Sometimes, Teng's wife and daughter would travel with him when he visited customers, gaining an authentic look at local cultures. Now, his wife and daughter have been with him for over a year. With his loved ones beside him, Teng has excelled and earned his first Individual Gold Medal Award.

Intelligence is sweeping the world, changing industry paradigms and business landscapes. These changes are bringing new hope.

We should appreciate both the opportunities and challenges presented by this new era. We grow through dedication, but we mature through challenge. In these uneasy days, we have to strive to do extraordinary things.

2025 is a new year, a new start, and a new journey. Together, let's move forward to reach for the brightest stars.