SHENZHEN, China

At a packed conference hall in Shenzhen last week, Huawei’s executive director Eric Wang delivered a bold proclamation: 2025 will mark the dawn of “AI agents” as the cornerstone of global technological transformation. The announcement, made during Huawei’s annual China Partners Summit, signals the telecom giant’s aggressive pivot to dominate the next wave of artificial intelligence — one where machines not only compute but act.

From Chatbots to Collaborators

Huawei’s vision hinges on what it calls “AI agents” — systems capable of autonomous reasoning, planning, and cross-domain task execution. Wang revealed that over 70% of Chinese businesses have already integrated AI into core workflows, with generative AI tools like chatbots now serving 300 million users monthly.

“AI is evolving from passive tools to proactive partners. The future belongs to those who co-evolve with AI.”
— Eric Wang, Huawei Executive Director

The 5.5G Backbone

At February’s Mobile World Congress, Huawei unveiled its AI-Centric 5.5G solutions, designed to support latency-sensitive applications like real-time AI avatars and industrial automation. These networks promise guaranteed response times under 10 milliseconds — critical for scenarios such as autonomous factories and AI-powered healthcare diagnostics.

Global Ripples, Local Dominance

While Western firms like OpenAI and Google tout “agentic AI” for creative tasks, Huawei is betting on industrial pragmatism. Its partnerships with manufacturers like BYD — which recently ordered 500 humanoid robots from Chinese startup Unitree at $13,500 apiece — highlight a strategy to undercut rivals like Boston Dynamics.

The Ethics Quandary

At a UN forum last month, critics warned that China’s state-aligned AI governance model risks entrenching surveillance and bias. Huawei’s Ruijin medical AI, despite its 99.2% accuracy in pathology analysis, operates within a healthcare system where patient data flows with minimal transparency.