From a consumer perspective, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to how Huawei are advancing their products using AI, from their mobile AI computing platform with a dedicated Neural-network Processing Unit (HiAI) to their latest technology in all their new phones (HiVision).

Last week, I attended Huawei’s European flagship event, Eco-Connect Europe 2018, in Rome. The event attracted over 2,600 attendees listening to world-leading keynote speakers including delegates from Huawei, Orange Cloud for Business and Bosch, and professors from the University of Cambridge, and the University of Zurich. Just as I anticipated, the event did not disappoint, and I was fortunate enough to hear some great talks ranging from AI and Cloud Services to the Digital Economy and Smart Manufacturing.

This particular technology caught my eye immediately. With a simple scan, HiVision can give you more information about landmarks, paintings and goods, tell you where to buy certain objects, or translate documents or street signs written in a different language. It can also measure the calories in food by recognising the food type and working out the volume, it was pretty cool being able to see this work first-hand.

A key highlight of mine from one of the talks was a comment from a Huawei VP, bolding stating that “In the future, there will be no apps. Everything will be voice controlled.” It was exciting to hear this coming from an AI leader at Huawei and I was eager to report my findings back to the team at Speechmatics.

I was also fortunate enough to hear a powerful talk from Vincent Pang, President of Huawei’s Western European Region, commenting on the importance of partnerships, something that resonates well with me. At Speechmatics, we see our partners as an integral part of our business, and to hear this echoed by Mr. Pang, and many others at the event was both reassuring and rewarding. I’d like to say a huge thank you to the guys at Huawei for putting on such an interesting and future-looking event, as well as giving me the perfect excuse to go and see the lovely sights of Rome! Interested in Speech Recognition? Try our real-time system here. Nick Wood, Speechmatics