To propel the Chinese smartphone manufacturer's artificial intelligence (AI) transition and integrate the technology across its devices, Honor's new CEO promised to invest $10 billion over the next five years.
Ahead of the yearly MWC mobile trade show, Honor CEO James Li Jian declared on Sunday in Barcelona that the "Alpha" investment plan will help the firm's new strategy to transition from a smartphone manufacturer to an ecosystem company centered on AI gadgets.
The initiative is expected to commence with the release of an AI smartphone that will transform how people use their phones, and it will gradually spread to a variety of other gadgets, such as wearables, tablets, and PCs, according to Li.
According to a business official, Honor intends to use the majority of the US$10 billion to work with international partners to "open technology boundaries" and "co-create a new paradigm for AI devices in the agentic AI era."
The remaining money will be used to prepare for the era of artificial general intelligence and to enable communication between different AI gadgets.
Li, who succeeded longtime leader George Zhao Ming in January, encouraged industry partners to pool their AI skills in order to build a platform for a variety of AI-enabled gadgets.
The news follows a management change as the Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer looks for a new course. As manufacturers scramble to update their devices with new AI features, the market for smartphones is projected to become even more competitive, posing a challenge to the new leadership.
Honor announced last week that it has included the R1 model from Chinese AI startup DeepSeek into its Yoyo virtual assistant and laptop and smartphone search engine.
Honor has been working with digital titans like Tencent Holdings, Alibaba Group Holding, and ByteDance in China to integrate AI into their devices. The South China Morning Post is owned by Alibaba.
Honor collaborates with Google to integrate Gemini AI models into its products on a global scale. Some of the AI functions on Honor's top devices, such as translation and a photo "AI eraser," are supported by the US business.