Tech giant Huawei announced its plan to invest US$100 million in startup support at the inaugural HUAWEI CLOUD Spark Founders Summit, which was held simultaneously in Singapore and Hong Kong. Huawei said the investments would go towards its Spark Program in Asia Pacific region including the Philippines, which aims to build a sustainable startup ecosystem over the next three years.
Huawei has been helping Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Thailand build their startup hubs. During the summit, Huawei also announced that the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam as the additional startup hubs.
Huawei also launched its Cloud-plus-Cloud Collaboration and Joint Innovation Program, to further ramp up its support for startups around the world. Huawei will devote ongoing efforts and leverage its complete business portfolio in the cloud-plus-cloud collaboration space to foster technological innovation, global and local services, and business ecosystems, accelerating the growth of startups.
Three additional initiatives under the Asia Pacific Spark Program were launched: The Spark Developer Program, the Spark Pitstop Program, and the Spark Innovation Program.
"Startups and SMEs are the innovators, disruptors, and pioneers of our times," said Catherine Chen, Huawei SVP and Board Member. "34 years ago, Huawei was a startup with just 5,000 dollars of registered capital. Recently, we have been thinking: How can we leverage our experience and resources to help more startups address their challenges? Doing so would allow them to seize the opportunities posed by digital transformation, achieve business success, and develop more innovative products and solutions for the world."
Zhang Ping'an, CEO of Huawei's Cloud Business Unit added, "Since its launch in 2017, HUAWEI CLOUD has been the world's fastest-growing cloud, and has driven the growth of countless startups. Last year, we launched the Spark Program in Asia Pacific. Through this program, we are working with local governments, leading incubators, well-known VC firms, and top universities to build support platforms for startups in many regions. Now, 40 startups are participating in our program."
"Starting today, we are stepping up our support for startups through four new initiatives, aimed at cloud-plus-cloud collaboration, continuous tech innovation, global and local services, and high-quality business ecosystems. Today, we launched our Cloud-plus-Cloud Collaboration and Joint Innovation Program, through which we will support startups with US$40 million worth of resources. Half of that investment is coming from HUAWEI CLOUD, half from Huawei Mobile Services (HMS). In 2021, our plan is to support 200 startups in the HMS ecosystem, and share our network of channel resources with developers worldwide who together serve 1 billion Huawei device users. In addition, we will open an HMS Developer Innovation Center to support 100,000 HMS cloud-native developers," concluded Zhang.
Dr. Lim Jui, CEO of SGInnovate who was also present during the event said, "The true impact of the Deep Tech Economy is realized when we're able to come together to catalyze new opportunities. Working alongside partners like Huawei enables us to accomplish our mission of supporting promising talent and emerging tech startups in Singapore."
More and more startups are pursuing end-to-end digitalization as they move towards a fully connected, intelligent world. HUAWEI CLOUD infrastructure works in conjunction with Huawei Mobile Services to support startups from all industries. Huawei's cloud offerings help developers and partners to unify accounts, development platforms, and app distribution and operation. HMS is now the world's third largest mobile app ecosystem, and is helping many startups expand their global influence. There are around 4.5 million developers from over 170 countries and regions who rely on HMS.
During the HUAWEI CLOUD Spark Founders Summit, Huawei unveiled the latest data on its innovation research programs with startups. The day shows solid relationships between Huawei and more than 2,000 partners from across the Asia Pacific region, with ongoing initiatives to build support platforms in close partnerships with governments, top VC firms.
Through this endeavor, Huawei aims to cultivate future talent in cooperation with 210 leading universities across the Asia Pacific region.
"For the past two decades, we have remained committed to being 'In Asia Pacific, For Asia Pacific.' Leveraging Huawei's global customer base and full-stack technologies, the Spark Program will invest more than US$100 million over the next three years, and provide comprehensive support to the establishment of a sustainable startup ecosystem that creates new value for this dynamic region," concluded Jeffrey Liu.
The summit was attended by representatives from numerous prominent Asian startups, academia, various industries and governments, and the media, as well as more than 50 regional top venture capitalists and over 300 startup founders. Topic was focused on the social value of this startup ecosystem innovation, to contribute to local communities and drive socioeconomic development.
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