Singapore. China’s leading technology company Huawei will significantly boost investment in innovations to help countries in the Asia-Pacific region meet their specific demands in an increasingly-connected world, the company’s top executive said on Thursday.

Countries in the region have been making tremendous progress in building digital infrastructure and making use of it in the last decade.

“For example, Thailand is using 5G to bring healthcare services to more people in remote regions. In the Philippines, people are using AI [artificial intelligence] and connected devices to help protect the rainforest,” Ken Hu, Huawei's rotating chairman, said during a conference in Singapore.

“The possibilities are endless. I’m sure that these countries will be able to figure out where and how they can get help from digital technologies to meet their specific needs,” he added.

Ken said the digital transformation is taking shape very rapidly in the region, opening door to so many innovations and technological breakthroughs to come. 

“Just 10 years ago, some Asia-Pacific countries did not have 3G or 4G infrastructure that works. By 2025, the Asia-Pacific region will have 1.2 billion 5G connections,” he said.

"Huawei has deep roots in the Asia-Pacific region. We have been serving our customers here for over 30 years and we are proud to support digital development in the region. Moving forward, we will keep investing heavily in innovation to help our partners in the region meet their strategic development goals,” Ken said. 

He claimed that last year Huawei invested 22 percent of its total revenue in innovation and research and development, one of the biggest R&D budget allocations among top companies in the world.

“Connectivity is not everything. It helps us collect and share data much more than before. However, we still need much stronger capabilities to process that data,” he said.

“In addition to strong connectivity, we also need to build more important infrastructure like clouds and data centers.”