BIZUPDATE
Monday September 2, 2019 B3Ready to go
“Passengers” and employees rehearse at the Beijing Daxing International Airport over the weekend. This was the
fifth full-scale exercise at the airport, involving 8,868 “passengers” and 140 flights. It was also the largest-ever
practice ahead of the airport’s planned start of services later this month. Photo: VCG Ark Compiler step in promoting HarmonyOS
Huawei launches open source site
Overseas EV makers aim to break into China market, but battery shortages loom
By Li XuanminHuawei launched a website for the
long-anticipated open source project
Ark Compiler over the weekend, a
significant step in helping global de-
velopers adopt Android coding into
applications that are compatible with
the Chinese company’s HarmonyOS.
The site will also help push for-
ward the building of an ecosystem for
HarmonyOS amid the US attack on
the Chinese technology powerhouse.
The website of Ark Compiler was
put online on Saturday, allowing us-
ers to access and download the source
code. A compiler is a program that
translates programming language
into machine language, which could
bridge the gap between human in-
structions and a machine’s ability to
understand them. Such programs are
critical to the efficiency of execution.
Huawei said its Ark Compiler
could work without the need for an
interpreter to enable direct transla-
tion.
In releasing the compiler, Huaweisaid it aims to share technological de-
velopment with developers and grow
with them together to promote indus-
trial innovation in an open way and
build up an open ecosystem.
Some industry insiders told the
Global Times that access to the Ark
compiler’s open source was halted
three minutes after the system was
released on Saturday, which they said
might have been due to some techni-
cal issues. The Global Times found
that the official website was back to
normal as of 3 pm Beijing time on
Sunday.
“Huawei’s overall roadmap to the
open source of its compiler will not
be changed by some trivial technical
defaults,” Ma Jihua, a Beijing-based
analyst in the telecommunications
sector, told the Global Times. The re-
lease of the open source showed Hua-
wei’s efforts to attract global develop-
ers to jointly build the HarmonyOS
ecosystem against the backdrop of
the US blacklisting in May that could
cut off Google’s Android OS supplies.
Huawei senior officials have said
that the establishment of a mobile OSis not the most difficult task – build-
ing up an ecosystem is. The company
hinted in April at a Huawei P30 series
launch event that the compiler will
open source to the public.
Huawei began development of the
Ark Compiler in 2009.
By supporting multiple popular
programming languages including
Java, the Ark compiler could convert
applications that support the Android
system to be compatible with Har-
monyOS, saving work for developers
and paving the road to a quick expan-
sion of the ecosystem, Ma said.
Industry sources told the Global
Times that as there’s no sign that the
authorization of the Android system
service is resuming, Huawei is busy
testing its HarmonyOS on a soon-to-
be-released new device, the Mate 30
lite.
The tests have gone well and the
new smartphone could also accom-
modate the Android system.
Some suggested that Huawei is
gauging external developments to de-
cide when to make an announcement
involving the new gadget.Chinese firm begins
mass production of first
automotive-grade AI chip
By Wang YiChina’s first automotive-grade artificial intelli-
gence (AI) chip, called Journey 2, has been put
into mass production, domestic autonomous
driving solution provider Horizon Robotics an-
nounced at the 2019 World Artificial Intelligence
Conference (WAIC), making an early bid for a
stronger position in the promising market.
Based on the AI chipmaker’s proprietary Brain
Processing Unit 2.0 (BPU 2.0) processor archi-
tecture, the Journey 2.0 can efficiently handle a
variety of AI tasks, like accurately recognizing
and detecting different objects in real time, ac-
cording to a press release Horizon Robotics sent
to the Global Times.
The new chip is highly energy efficient and
can offer a computing performance of more than
4 Theoretical Operations Per Second (TOPS) at a
typical power dissipation of only 2 watt, according
to the press release.
The Beijing-based start-up also unveiled Hori-
zon Open Explorer, an open tool chain for devel-
opers, at the launch of the Journey 2 at the 2019
WAIC in Shanghai on Friday. Users of the Jour-
ney 2 will be offered an open basic development
environment that covers solutions for reference,
sensing results, chips and tool chains, the press
release read.
Journey 2 has been ordered by several car
manufacturers in five countries, said Horizon,
which is seen as China’s future Intel in the AI
sector. Horizon has taken the lead in launching
an automotive-grade AI chip, but it’s still under
great competitive pressure, an industry insider
told the Global Times on Sunday.
The autonomous-driving sector involves a
huge industry chain including automakers, hard-
ware and software producers and network pro-
viders. Its development is still at the beginning
stage, and it’s still too early to tell which chip
producer will gain ground, said Feng Shiming, a
veteran car industry analyst.
Following the Journey 2, the BPU 3.0-based
Journey 3 chip is expected to be launched next
year, industry insiders said. The Journey 3 will
perform better than Mobileye’s automotive-grade
chip, which is now used by most vehicle makers,
an anonymous employee from Horizon said.
As technology giants like Huawei plan to
launch their own automotive-grade AI chips this
year and cars using the Harmony operating sys-
tem will also be launched soon, China’s autono-
mous driving solution providers are expected to
catch up with and surpass their overseas competi-
tors.By Xie JunAs Tesla CEO Elon Musk had a
brisk chat with Alibaba founder
Jack Ma Yun during the open-
ing of the World Artificial In-
telligence Conference (WAIC
2019), visitors swarmed to the
booth of Tesla to see the black
Model 3 on display.
“Many visitors lined up fora long time to get into the car
and have a look at the interior.
Some even thought that it’s
a concept car because of the
novelty of its interior design,” a
Tesla saleswoman who attend-
ed the WAIC 2019 wrote in her
WeChat account on Saturday.
Another employee of Tesla
told the Global Times at the
WAIC that Tesla plans to start
mass production of its made-in-China cars this December.
China will exempt Tesla’s
electric vehicles (EVs) from a
vehicle purchase tax, the Minis-
try of Industry and Information
Technology said on Friday.
Besides Tesla, other over-
seas car brands are also beef-
ing up efforts to launch EVs
in China. Mercedes Benz has
just launched its first electric
sport utility vehicle in one of itsShanghai stores. Guangqi Toy-
ota is on the way to launch its
first electric car, the iA5, during
the upcoming Chengdu Motor
Show 2019. SAIC Volkswagen
has also launched its first EV,
the e-Lavida.
“Overseas car brands have
acted slowly when launching
electric cars. Particularly in
China, self-owned car brands
have gained first-mover advan-tages in the electric car market,
pushing overseas carmakers to
speed up their new-energy ve-
hicle (NEV) layout to keep up,”
said Cui Dongshu, secretary-
general of the China Passenger
Car Association.
Veteran car analyst Jia Xin-
guang said that a shortage of
electric car battery technologies
has put overseas carmakers in a
tough situation.Page Editor:
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