Huawei HarmonyOS

Huawei unveiled HarmonyOS 4.0 during the Huawei Developer Conference (HDC) 2023 event on Friday, which analysts said shows that the US' intensifying crackdown on the Chinese telecom has failed.

Citing a line from an ancient Chinese poem "The swift boat has already sailed through thousands of hills," Yu Chengdong, executive director and CEO of the Consumer BG, said during a speech at the event that Huawei mobile phones have been on the road of returning, domestic news site ce.cn reported.

In comparison to the previous version, HarmonyOS 4 is 20 percent more fluent in operation and can extend battery life by 30 minutes, according to Huawei.

HarmonyOS is Huawei's in-house OS with the smartphone at the center of the whole ecosystem. Yu said there are 700 million units of smart devices that have been equipped with HarmonyOS, covering smartphones, tablet computers, smart screens and car cabins, and HarmonyOS developers have exceeded 2.2 million.

According to a report published by research firm Counterpoint in May, 8 percent of mobile terminals sold across China in the first quarter of 2023 were using the operating system, marking a notable growth compared to the 3 percent usage in the same period last year.

Yu said HarmonyOS 4.0 with AI powered ChatGPT like voice assistant.

"When the system was launched, analysts estimated that there will be at most 350 million units using HarmonyOS. The number of 700 million means great possibility of survival of the operating system," Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Beijing-based Information Consumption Alliance, told the Global Times on Friday.

In terms of the function of AI-powered new language model adaptation, HarmonyOS 4.0 is superior to both iOS and Android, he said.

The rapid rollout of HarmonyOS 4.0, the big data and cloud computing showcased the research and development capability of Huawei, and marks the uselessness of the US' crackdown on Huawei, Xiang said.

Huawei launched a new AI model Pangu 3.0 in early July, marking a fresh update of its self-developed large language model. In addition to Huawei, major Chinese technology firms have ratcheted up efforts to upgrade AI language models in a race to compete with OpenAI Inc's ChatGPT.

Chinese voice-recognition company iFlytek reportedly said in June its SparkDesk aims to exceed ChatGPT's capabilities in Chinese language while reaching the same level with the chatbot in English in the fourth quarter of the year, domestic news outlet nbd.com.cn reported.

In March, Chinese search engine giant Baidu took the stage in Beijing to showcase the company's new large language model named Ernie Bot.

Just three months after the release of Ernie Bot, Baidu's large language model Ernie 3.5 has achieved broad enhancements in efficacy, functionality, and performance, according to a press release from the company.

Global Times