Cultivating Talent, Powering the AI Era
AI is moving fast — faster than many industries can adapt, faster than many institutions can respond. Intelligent transformation is now a global phenomenon, touching every sector, every economy, every society. At the center of this shift lies a question that will shape the coming era: Who will build, shape, and sustain the AI-powered world? The need for talent is no longer just a future concern. It is an immediate, urgent, and growing imperative.
For Huawei, this urgency carries a dual responsibility. As an innovator in ICT, we are committed to building competitive digital and intelligent infrastructure that drives real industry transformation. And as a corporate citizen, we recognize a deeper truth: The faster technology advances, the more critical it becomes to accelerate talent development in step with it.
Since we launched the Huawei ICT Academy program in 2013, we have partnered with more than 3,500 universities in over 110 countries and regions, reaching more than 1.8 million students worldwide. We continue to explore new models and pathways for industry-education collaboration. At the inauguration of Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Zhiyuan-1 Intelligent Computing Platform, we reaffirmed our commitment: Huawei will continue to use the Kunpeng & Ascend Science and Education Innovation Excellence Center to speed up the cultivation of top AI talent and interdisciplinary AI+X professionals.
AI is reshaping education in profound ways, and together we are confronting a defining question of our time: How can we turn AI's immense potential into a tangible force that empowers every learner across every boundary of technology and resources? This will require all of us, especially those at the forefront of innovation, to reflect carefully on our roles and responsibilities in the larger ecosystem.
Companies, especially technology companies, cannot limit their role to that of an external provider of tools. The real responsibility lies in becoming co-builders and enablers of the education ecosystem. This commitment can be understood across three dimensions.
First, we serve as a bridge for inclusive connectivity, lowering the barriers to accessing computing power. Our role is to transform cutting-edge AI computing power, development platforms, and course resources into solutions that universities, faculty, and students can easily access and use. Through initiatives like the Huawei ICT Academy and the AI 100 Schools Plan, we are making Ascend AI computing power and full-stack technologies accessible to the education sector. This is how we work to close the gap in equitable access, ensuring that learners everywhere have the opportunity to use the latest AI technologies.
Second, we act as a catalyst for industry-education integration, closing the gap between learning and application. True enablement means ensuring that what students learn is what they will actually use. For example, we turn real industry scenarios, engineering problems, and datasets into teachable cases and competition challenges. The Huawei ICT Competition embeds authentic industry problems into its tracks, challenging students to apply knowledge to real problems and develop their abilities through practical application. For companies, the responsibility is clear: Bring the industry's live challenges into the classroom.
Third, we work as a collaborator in building lifelong learning systems, supporting every learner along their journey. In the AI era, knowledge is evolving faster than ever and shows no signs of slowing down. Companies can draw on their own technological progress and industry practices to deliver continually updated learning content, certification systems, and practice communities for learners at every stage, from students to working professionals. This is not just about offering courses. It is about building an end-to-end support system that enables learners to continually acquire new skills and adapt to change.
At the end of the day, in a world where AI is reshaping education, the greatest responsibility of companies lies not in technology output alone, but in embedding their innovation chains deeply into the talent development lifecycle with openness, pragmatism, and a long-term view. At Huawei, this is exactly what we are doing: building training grounds through Huawei ICT Academies, creating practice arenas through Huawei ICT Competitions, and launching initiatives like the AI 100 Schools Plan. Our goal is to stand alongside the education community and nurture a generation that does more than use AI tools, a generation that shapes the future of AI with creativity and responsibility.
Only when companies fully embrace their role as enablers and co-builders will AI cease to be a privilege for the few and become a light that guides every learner forward.
Standing on the eve of a computing power boom, we can already see the intelligent world taking form on the horizon. It is not a destination that any single individual or company can reach alone. The boundaries of technology are being broken every day. The boundaries of talent must be expanded together.
OpenAtom Foundation has partnered with more than 20 pilot universities to develop a contribution-oriented open-source talent assessment framework. This marks a major shift for open-source education — from advocacy in principle to a teaching practice that is methodologically workable, institutionally operable, and genuinely measurable.