LIVE FROM HUAWEI DATA FORUM, BERLIN: Huawei’s president of European enterprise business Willi Song (pictured) and president of data storage product line Peter Zhou outlined the company’s ambitions for its data storage enterprise, crediting rapid deployment of generative AI (genAI).

During an opening speech, Song stated the industry is “entering an intelligent world”, with data undergoing an “explosive growth” as cloud-based models, algorithms and AI technologies gaining more popularity each day.

This, Song believes, will further “open up new opportunities for Europe”, with the executive positioning the company as backer for the continent’s “digital and intelligent transformation”. Today, Huawei provides data storage tools to more than 25,000 clients in 150 countries spanning five regions, claimed the executive. And at the event, the vendor launched a pair of products under this category.

The ambition and expectations Huawei places on its data storage business were further detailed during a media roundtable. Zhou, who oversees the vendor’s IT offerings, said it has re-invested 20 per cent of its revenue into R&D in the data storage area, for each of the past three years.

It also inked more than 200 cross-licensing agreements for storage equipment with “major industry patent holders” in 2023.

Zhou expressed a perception that AI-focused data storage technologies won’t risk becoming obsolete, noting “data is not just information, they are assets”.

He then compared the invention of data storage tech with the discovery of paper. “Since paper has been founded, knowledge has become cheaper and accessible. We think of ourselves as the paper-maker of the digitalised era, we need new, cost-effective technologies to store these data”.

Speaking to Mobile World Live after the roundtable, Zhou explained its newly-launched OceanStor A800 solution boasts upgraded storage for AI datasets, and “is good for large-scale, genAI clustering while preventing the leak of data”.