More than 400 partners from in Asia Pacific gathered in Thailand on May 9 for Huawei Cloud’s annual partner conference.
The event focused on how companies can use AI to build better services and meet rising demand in industries. This year’s theme was “Go Together, Grow Together.”
Jacqueline Shi, who leads Huawei Cloud’s global marketing and sales, opened the conference by saying the company sees strong potential in regional partnerships. She said governments, banks, telecoms, and internet firms are all moving faster on AI, and Huawei Cloud plans to support that shift with upgraded tools and services.
To help local partners get started – or scale faster – the company has set up a competence centre for the region. The centre will offer training, technical support, and help with marketing. It’s part of a broader effort to make sure partners can build profitable businesses on Huawei Cloud.
Expanding in Asia Pacific
Asia Pacific has become one of Huawei Cloud’s top priorities. Over the past five years, the company says it has grown its business in the region thirty-fold. It now works with more than 2,500 partners and has set up five cloud regions and 18 availability zones, offering low-latency coverage in most of Asia Pacific.
In 2024 alone, the company reported a 75% increase in partner revenue.
Sunny Shang, President of Huawei Cloud Asia Pacific, credited the growth to its local-first approach. He introduced a new version of the Partner Sales Acceleration Program, which offers product support, joint development funds, and shared go-to-market planning. Shang said Huawei Cloud is working with partners to build 50 new industry solutions. It’s also tripling the amount of funding available for joint marketing.
Focusing on key sectors
Huawei Cloud also launched what it’s calling the “Industry Deep-Dive Initiative,” which targets three sectors: internet, finance, and telecom. The company says it wants to build better collaboration models in each sector by focusing on practical use cases and helping partners deliver more relevant solutions.
Joy Huang, who oversees strategy and industry development for Huawei Cloud, spoke about the growing influence of AI in industries. He said the company is investing in AI-native infrastructure to help partners and customers keep up. That includes building out the Huawei computing platform, CloudMatrix, and supporting new use cases with custom AI models like Pangu.
“We expect more than 15 million AI-powered robots and over 3 billion intelligent devices to be connected to the cloud through cloud-device synergy,” Huang said, quoting projections from Huawei’s Cloud Computing 2030 report.
Cloud services with built-in AI
Huawei Cloud is promoting what it calls a “Cloud for AI” and “AI for Cloud” approaches, building six core capabilities to support the initiatives: secure and reliable cloud services, a global infrastructure with low latency, cloud-native tools, foundational AI models, knowledge-based data tools, and coordination between cloud and connected devices.
Huang said the platform experienced no major outages last year, while other vendors experienced several. He said Huawei Cloud’s low-latency network now spans 33 regions and 96 availability zones globally.
Kubernetes and cloud-native tools like CCE Turbo are playing a bigger role in how companies deploy AI workloads, he said. These tools are helping enterprises move faster, particularly in complex or highly regulated environments.
Product development and AI readiness
William Fang, Chief Product Officer at Huawei Cloud, shared updates on the company’s infrastructure roadmap. He said Huawei Cloud is being rebuilt to handle the large workloads and data volumes that come with AI. Huawei Cloud now supports distributed cloud setups, native AI storage, and hybrid deployment options.
Fang explained how Huawei’s Pangu models are being fine-tuned for use in areas like product R&D, data security, and operations. The company has also opened new AI computing centres in Asia Pacific, allowing local firms to train and deploy models without relying on global data centres.
At the event, Huawei Cloud also introduced the “APAC AI Pioneer Plan,” aimed at speeding up the rollout of AI technologies by working more closely with ecosystem partners.
A growing partner network
Building a strong partner network is central to Huawei Cloud’s long-term strategy, according to Ken Kang, who leads the global ecosystem division. The company wants to make it easier for partners to build, test, and sell AI-powered solutions running on its platform.
In Asia Pacific, Dale Chen, director of partner development, said Huawei Cloud is focusing on two goals: deeper collaboration in key industries and better tools to support sales. That includes more targeted marketing, technical account managers, and shared sales resources.
Leon Yu, a Huawei Cloud executive who focuses on partner programs, said the company has grown its ecosystem steadily since 2014. It now works with more than 45,000 partners and 50,000 developers. The Partner-Customer Engagement programme, which links partners with sales leads, now generates around 20 million leads each month.
Yu said Huawei has increased its internal support team to include 20,000 digital workers and 1,000 engineers helping partners with subjects like cost, security, and infrastructure.
He also addressed shifts in the market. A decade ago, most IT investment went into infrastructure services. Now, SaaS makes up more than 70% of the market, and Yu believes the trend will accelerate with AI.
“We’re not just building products – we’re building an ecosystem grounded in shared goals, technical support, and talent,” he said.
Local partnerships on display
During the conference, several regional partners – including AIS, SCash Global, Orange Business, and Chulalongkorn University – shared their experiences working with Huawei Cloud. The sessions focused on joint development efforts and how local needs are shaping new products.
Huawei Cloud says it will continue to invest in local partnerships, focusing on AI tools and services that match the needs of changing industries.
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