Honor pledges $10 billion investment in AI over 5 years
The Chinese smartphone maker wants to expand from being mainly a smartphone firm and develop a system of AI-powered PCs, tablets and wearables, its CEO James Li said.
Chinese smartphone maker Honor has pledged to invest USD 10 billion in artificial intelligence over the next five years and announced a deeper collaboration with Google.
Honor is seeking to position itself as an “AI device ecosystem company,” the company said.
The Shenzhen-based company wants to expand from being mainly a smartphone firm and develop a system of AI-powered PCs, tablets and wearables, its CEO James Li said, according to a Reuters report.
“This is not limited to our own devices, but also AI devices from different partners, so the different kinds of AI devices can talk to each other, and consumers can have more choices and seamless experiences,” an Honor spokesperson told CNBC.
Honor’s announcement comes as Chinese AI investment has shot up, triggered by interest in DeepSeek’s low-price large language models.
However, Honor is a relatively small player outside China. Its smartphone market share outside the country was 2.3% in 2024, according to IDC data.
Honor is using the tech behind Google Gemini for the AI features on its latest devices, the CNBC report said.
The Chinese company also announced it would commit to seven years of employing Android and security updates for its Magic series of flagship smartphones.