General Electric Co. has announced a partnership with Chinese telecoms equipment and smartphone maker Huawei to work on productivity boosting equipment and machines.

Itโ€™s part of the U.S. giantโ€™s ambitious โ€˜industrial revolutionโ€™ plans, which aim to boost efficiency by integrating end-to-end intelligence an analytics with traditional machinery and robotics.

The partnership was revealed on Wednesday at an event in Shanghai, where they also announced the launch of an $11 million USD co-working space, designed to incubate startups in fields corresponding to the companyโ€™s vision.

GE forecasts $500 million USD in savings this year as part of their productivity push. The company is hoping to expand their software portfolio, according to a recent earnings call, predicting $15 billion USD in software-related revenue by 2020.

In October 2015 Huawei announced a $1 billion USD investment fund aimed at boosting innovation in both software and devices. The company also opened a developer-focussed platform named eSDK in the hope of improving efficiency.

The latest pairing between GE and Huawei could see the Chinese company adopt GEโ€™s operating system, Predix, which is already used by a handful of state-backed companies and projects. GE will also have access to Huaweiโ€™s extensive product portfolio.

Cate is a tech writer. She worked as a journalist in Australia, Mongolia and Myanmar. You can reach her (in Chinese or English) at: @catecadell or catecadell@ovau.ip-ddns.com

Leave a comment

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.