COVID-19 has ravaged the global economy, but Information and Communications Technology (ICT) can combat the effects of the pandemic in many ways.
This is the contention of Rotating Chairman of Huawei, Gao Ping. Speaking at Huawei’s Better World Summit 2020, Ping said: “The pandemic has reshaped how we live and work and has dealt a heavy blow to the global economy. Fortunately ICT can help us fight back against the virus on multiple fronts.”
As an ICT company, Ping said that Huawei has a responsibility to use technology together with its partners and customers to effect a positive impact on communities.
Whether it is hospital network deployment, remote consultations, online education or restarting governments and businesses, Ping indicated that Huawei has been sharing its experiences and capabilities to help control the spread of the virus and re-open economies. Ping said during the pandemic, countries all over the world have been building field hospitals, but the shortage of doctors has been a persistent problem. Ping disclosed that in February, a field hospital was built in Wuhan with 300 beds in a few days while China Telecom got an emergency 5G network up and running in 24 hours.
Ping highlighted: “With this network, a medical export over 700 kilometres away was able to perform remote ultrasounds on patients in Wuhan. It took only 15 minutes per patient and the results were perfectly clear.”
Huawei’s Rotating Chairman said the company believes that 5G and medicine will help consumers and businesses make the most of medical reassures.
The business case for 5G is not just connectivity, said Ping, he disclosed that when technologies like 5G, computing cloud and AI come together they reinforce each other to create greater value.
Giving an example, Ping spoke about an aviation technical service provide in Europe using 5G applications to make to aircraft maintenance more efficient. One of the applications is 5G-enabled remote inspection.
Before 5G, Ping said that an in-depth aircraft inspection would take two full months of full work on site. He said: “Now the support of 5G engineers can inspect aircraft remotely using different 4K livestreams - this solution alone cuts labour cost by 78 per cent.”