Over a period of three days, between September 19 to 21, several thousands of Huawei’s partners and other stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific Region gathered in Thailand for one of the biggest information and communications technology (ICT) event of the year.
A key event on the global ICT calendar, Huawei Connect is the time when Huawei, one of the world’s leading technology providers, announces its newest products and solutions and elaborates on the merit and importance of new digital technologies like 5G, cloud and artificial intelligence (AI).
At the same time, the gathering allows the participants to hear from their counterparts from other countries, share experiences and best practices and explore ways on how they can work together for the benefit of everyone.
More than 10,000 attendees from China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Bangladesh, the Philippines and other countries gathered at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre in Bangkok for the event.
The attendees include top Huawei officials, leading government figures, and ICT industry executives and experts.
Simon Lin, President of Huawei Asia-Pacific Region; Supattanapong Punmeechaow, Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy; David Almirol, Undersecretary of E-Government, Department of Information and Communications Technology, Philippines; Yang Mee Eng, Executive Director of the ASEAN Foundation were among the dignitaries who graced the occasion.
Ministry of Post and Telecommunications Secretary of State Sok Puthyvuth and Huawei Cambodia CEO Sovann Yao were among the dignitaries from Cambodia who attended the summit. Top officials and representatives from Cambodia’s Ministry of Information were also present for the event.
This year’s gathering was held in-person, and also marks the first time for Thailand to host the event. The event started with Unleash Digital, where the speakers talked about the current state of the ICT sector in the Asia-Pacific Region, the challenges they faced and their plans to overcome them.
In his keynote speech, Huawei Rotating Chairman Ken Hu said going digital is clearly the right choice. “The demand is there, and so are the technologies,” he stressed. “The world is unleashing digital productivity, and it’s happening right now.”
Hu also pointed out the challenges along the way and ways to overcome them. He said there are several things we can do to break through bottlenecks in digital transformation.
“First, we need to boost the digital infrastructure. That means 10-Gbps connectivity and supporting billions of connections for industrial scenarios.” he said.
Second, according to Hu, companies deserve more from the cloud. “Not just basic resources, but advanced technology services that are easy to use and drive leapfrog development,” he stressed. “And finally, the digital ecosystem. We need to build up our partners, strengthen the talent pool and give more support for SMEs.”
Among the key sessions during the event was the National ICT and Policy Roundtable.
Among the speakers was MPTC Secretary of State Puthyvuth.
He mentioned that the vision of the Cambodia Digital Government Policy (2022-2035) is ‘to establish digital government to improve citizen’s quality of life and build trust through better public’.
“Its objectives is to build a smart government based on the use of digital infrastructure and technology as an ecosystem for governance system modernization and reform in a transparent and credible manner to develop an inclusive digital economy and society,” he added.
Cambodia’s strategic goals are to promote development of digital government infrastructure; build digital governance and develop digital public services; promote cooperation and partnerships between public and private sectors; and promote digital capacity building and innovation.
Puthyvuth also mentioned the “Ten Strategies with 83 Actions”, including building and improving digital connectivity infrastructure; building and improving digital payment system infrastructure for public service; building and strengthening digital security infrastructure; developing Postal Service; setting up the Governance of Digital Government Infrastructure; transform the Government and Public Services to Digital; build Digital Human Capital; promote Digital Research and Innovation; cooperate with DigitalTechnology Firm; and promote Digital Start-up.
Cambodia’s ICT digital economy is growing by leaps and bounds in a sustainable manner, according to many experts.
There were 21.18 million mobile connections in Cambodia in 2020 and the figures have only kept growing since then, according to the World Bank (WB), International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA).
According to the findings that were published in the local media, mobile penetration is more than 126 percent, with the number of internet users across the country’s 25 provinces reaching 8.86 million. They noted that penetration reached 52.6 percent by January 2021, which increased by 1.1 million (+14 percent) within one year.
“Average Mobile Date of Usage per month exceeds 30 Gigabyte, which is 3 times of global average and more than that of neighbouring ASEAN countries as well,” a report published in the Khmer Times noted earlier.
“Not only traditional voice and data services, additional digital services including online office, remote video conference, remote education and e-commerce are more heavily dependent on the digital infra requirements of universal broadband and speedup broadband network,” it added.
The event also featured the launching of new Huawei Cloud Regions in Indonesia and Ireland.
Huawei Cloud CEO Zhang, who led the launching, announced that by the end of 2022, Huawei Cloud will operate 75 availability zones in 29 regions around the world. “This will boost the services for more than 170 countries and regions,” he noted.
The occasion also saw the launching of the “Go Cloud, Go Global” ecosystem plan, an initiative that was tailored to accelerate the development of a global digital industry ecosystem for joint innovation and shared success, according to Huawei.
Jacqueline Shi, President of Huawei Cloud’s Global Marketing and Sales Service, announced the entry into the global market of more than 15 new advanced services, including Huawei Cloud CCE Turbo, Ubiquitous Cloud Native Service (UCS), Pangu wave model, DataArts LakeFormation, Virtual Live, CodeCheck and CloudTest, KooMessage, KooSearch, and KooGallery.
