Huawei, Kuka sign MoU for smart manufacturing solutions

Mar. 21, 2016 – Huawei signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Kuka, a global provider of robot technology, to develop smart manufacturing solutions for industrial markets in Europe and China at CeBIT 2016 (Global Event for Digital Business) on March 14.

Under the agreement, Huawei and Kuka will collaborate in the areas of Cloud computing, big data, mobile technology, and industrial robots to help manufacturing customers transform and embrace smart manufacturing.

The parties say research and development will be central to the new partnership. Key areas of R&D include the use of small cell Internet of Things (IoT), wireless and 5G network, as well as big data solutions in manufacturing and factory environments and the deployment of Huawei’s infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solutions to develop Cloud-hosted smart manufacturing services. In addition, Kuka and Huawei will set up a joint intuitive robot programming team to explore the use of imitative deep learning in advanced manufacturing environments.

“The manufacturing industry is undergoing profound transformation, and robots will be critical to revolutionizing factories and driving new opportunities. Kuka plays a central role in promoting and developing smart manufacturing solutions in Germany and across the world,” said Ryan Ding, executive director and president of Products & Solutions, Huawei. “We’re confident our strategic partnership with Kuka will enable Huawei to lead the way in helping global manufacturing enterprises transform their factories and gain significant competitive advantages from realizing smart manufacturing.”

“We welcome our partnership with Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology solutions provider,” continued Peter Mohnen, CFO at Kuka AG. “Digitalization and the implementation of Industrie 4.0 will bring fundamental changes to industrial production and necessitate new products, solutions and concepts. As a global innovation leader of Industrie 4.0, Kuk is pushing ahead with this development and many sectors of the Chinese economy offer great potential. The electronic industry is challenged with an increasing number of new products, an accelerating pace of development and shorter product life cycles. Here we see a high potential for robot-based solutions.”