Tech for a Better Planet

The theme of World Environment Day 2020 is Time for Nature. From the climate crisis to the loss of biodiversity to the global pandemic, nature is sounding the alarm. We believe that technology is key to responding to the environmental crisis that we are facing.

On June 5, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) will host a webinar themed Tech for a Better Planet. Supported by Huawei, the webinar will explore how the innovative use of technology can minimize humanity’s impact on the environment and create new opportunities for protecting the Earth’s ecosystem and creating a sustainable future.

Huawei’s vision and mission is to bring digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.

Environmental protection is one of Huawei four corporate sustainability strategies. Aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the environment domain of our strategy focuses on four areas: reducing carbon emissions, accelerating the use of renewable energy, striving towards a circular economy, and conserving natural resources.

We believe that technology is crucial for conserving nature and biodiversity, and for mitigating climate change.

We develop green technologies, solutions, and processes to achieve these aims, and we help consumers, customers, suppliers, and industries to adopt technologies that positively impact the environment.

We work with a wide range of organizations to expand the scope and efficacy of environmental initiatives and we’re keen to establish new, long-term partnerships. 

Read more: Huawei’s PowerStar Wins the GSMA GLOMO Best Mobile Innovation for Climate Award

Technology isn’t against nature – it’s part of nature

ICT can promote economic prosperity and protect the natural environment for generations to come. Tech for a better planet: that’s what we believe. It’s also a promise that we have made in the past, one that we follow now, and one that we will uphold in the future.

We have made great progress in improving the efficiency of resource utilization in production, manufacturing, and logistics. We continue to build operation systems that are friendly to the environment, and we work with our partners to use digital technology to protect natural resources in more efficient ways.

Energy-Saving Innovations

The energy-saving technologies we develop span multiple areas, including architecture, processes, and materials. As a result, we have continuously improved product energy efficiency. Here are three examples:

1. Wireless Sites

Huawei has launched a full-outdoor solution for 5G

With a modular design, we can mount all wireless devices, power supply devices, and microwave devices outdoors on a pole. Unlike traditional site solutions, our modular solution does not require an air conditioner.

This alone reduces power consumption by at least 40%.

2. Optical Transport

Traditional WDM devices require a large number of optical fibers to connect to each other in the equipment room. This consumes vast amounts of energy and takes up a lot of space. Huawei’s unique optical fiber printing technology can print 1,000 optical fibers onto an A4 paper-sized optical panel.

We can now replace nine traditional devices with just one device, which reduces power consumption by 60%.

3. AI Computing

In the AI computing field, Huawei launched the industry’s first full liquid cooling AI cluster in 2019. The cluster uses liquid cooling mode for the cabinet and implements liquid cooling at the board level. Offering the same 256P computing power, a traditional air-cooled cluster requires 86 cabinets.

The Atlas 900 cluster only requires 16 cabinets, reducing power consumption by 60%.

Popularizing Smart PV

By integrating information technology and photovoltaic technology, we have improved the efficiency of photovoltaic power generation and converted each joule of solar energy into more photovoltaic power.

Since 2013, we have contributed more than 180 billion kWh of solar power to the world. That is the equivalent to reducing more than 108 million tons of carbon emissions and more than 200 million trees.

We continuously introduce solutions for renewable energy into our operations and have built PV power plants in our campus. Equally, we promote the wide application of smart PV in the world to bring clean electricity to millions of households.

In China, we built the first PV plant in our southern factory in Dongguan. It can generate 18 million kWh of electricity each year, representing 10% of the factory’s electricity consumption.

ICT Conserves Natural Resources

Rainforest Connection is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting rainforests with technology.

In 2019, Huawei began working with RFCx. Based on the data analysis capabilities of HUAWEI CLOUD, the noise detection precision of chainsaws – which indicate illegal logging – increased to 96%, greatly improving the work efficiency of forest rangers.

The solution has been implemented in 10 countries and regions to cover more than 2,500 square kilometers of rainforest. In 2020, we plan to scale up the project to 15 countries and cover 6,000 square kilometers.

Read more: TECH4ALL: Acting Now To Stop Our Rainforests from Disappearing

Protecting Nature’s Big Cats

We’re working with Beijing Normal University and the World Conservation Union to build an integrated surveillance system for the Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park.

With the deployment of ICT products and solutions, the efficiency of data collection, transmission, storage, and analysis efficiency has been greatly improved. In the first phase, Huawei and our partners jointly built a 700 MHz trunking solution, covering more than 5,000 square kilometers.

Based on this network, images from infrared cameras can be transmitted in real time and forest rangers can make video calls, also enabling real-time updates. Intelligent video image analysis can be performed on HUAWEI CLOUD to quickly identify tigers, leopards, and other wild animals (as show below in the video captures from the park). 

Source: National Forestry and Grassland Administration Amur Tiger and Amur Leopard Monitoring and Research Center

How You Can Get Involved with TECH4ALL

In 2019, Huawei officially launched TECH4ALL program. One of the four key domains in this initiative is to protect the environment.

We welcome you to join us to take action to build a better environment with technology. Our TECH4ALL website and email tech4all@huawei.com are always open.

We cannot go it alone. Achieving the TECH4ALL vision — leaving no one behind in the digital world — is impossible without partnerships. And new partnerships can come about in many ways: we can join existing projects led by others, so our ICT expertise can help make a difference. Organizations can join existing TECH4ALL projects to generate greater synergies and impact. And we can co-create coalitions and new initiatives for digital inclusion. We’d love to hear any ideas and suggestions on how we can work together.

Together we can make a difference.

Disclaimer: Any views and/or opinions expressed in this post by individual authors or contributors are their personal views and/or opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views and/or opinions of Huawei Technologies.