Huawei plans wireless innovation with X Labs

Chinese technology giant Huawei today announced a new initiative that it hopes will bring about new uses for wireless technology.

Dubbed X Labs, the platform will bring together operators, technology providers, and vertical industry partners to drive innovation in mobile applications and their use in business and industry.

During his opening keynote at Huawei Global Mobile Broadband Forum (MBBF) 2016 in Tokyo, Huawei rotating CEO Ken Hu talked up the importance of collaboration, telling delegates: "We're ... pleased to see that more and more companies are joining us for better technological solutions and more and more pilot projects, like TechCity, are established all around the world."

"At Huawei, we aim to enable and support this ecosystem," he added. "We hope that X Labs can become a new, open platform where we can bring together technology providers, carriers and companies from all vertical industries, to jointly explore the use case of mobile communication in different scenarios, to jointly do the innovation of technology and business, and to jointly develop the open ecosystem."

With this in mind, X Labs has three sub-divisions: mLab, vLab and hLab.

MLab specialises in the research and development of new technologies and use cases for voice and vision, such as live video, VR and AR.

"[MLab] will help us to figure out how to deliver this amazing experience through a stronger network and it will also help us to figure out how we can jointly develop the successful business case based on this immersive user experience," said Hu.

VLab is focused on specific verticals, such as smart manufacturing, autonomous and smart vehicles, and different industries like energy, transportation and public safety.

"We hope that the vLab will help us to figure out how to make mobile communication an enabler for digital transformation in many other vertical industries," Hu explained.

The third and final subsection is hLab, which is focused on the connected home.

"There's a huge market for us in the household market," said Hu. "The hLab will focus on how to take that advantage of the broadband connectivity in households to develop home applications like security, entertainment, education, health and others."

Now in its seventh year, Huawei Global Mobile Broadband forum takes place over 24 and 25 November 2016. Features editor and networking correspondent Jane McCallion is on site for the entire event click here keep up to date with all the latest news, including 5G, IoT and AI,and follow Jane on Twitter.

Main image credit: Jane McCallion, IT Pro