Huawei seeks to expand AI partnerships with pharmaceutical companies

Huawei is planning to expand its artificial intelligence partnerships within the pharmaceutical sector, focusing primarily on domestic Chinese drugmakers. William Zhang, president of Huawei’s healthcare business unit, stated that the company aims to deepen research into medical AI to facilitate collaboration across drug manufacturing, clinical practice, and final implementation.

The company’s strategy involves providing the necessary computing infrastructure, such as its Ascend and Kunpeng chips, to support AI-driven drug development. This includes tasks like analyzing biological data, identifying drug candidates, and modeling compound behavior.

One notable previous collaboration involved Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings and the Beijing-based AI drug design firm StoneWise. In that instance, Huawei provided the silicon and technical support to run domestically developed AI drug research models on its own hardware, marking a significant effort to maintain drug discovery pipelines using non-American technology.