5G and the cloud are changing the way many businesses operate, but one critical business vertical is gaining operational efficiency and safety perspective — mining.
In this video interview, Xu Jun, CTO of Huawei's Mining Business Unit, discusses how his team is leveraging its ICT knowledge and experience to help modernize what remains one of the world’s most important industrial sectors.
According to Xu, the key to the ongoing and future viability of mining operations is connectivity, achievable through foundational technologies such as WiFi, 4G, 5G and fibre optics.
Huawei has grown its presence in the sector by collaborating closely with miners to create solutions which are bespoke to their operational and safety needs. Watch the interview with Xu to discover more about how technology is driving improvements in these critical areas.
Steve Saunders: It's very nice to meet you.
Jun Xu: Nice to meet you.
Steve Saunders: And you are in charge of Huawei's Mining business. Tell us what that involves.
Jun Xu: Yeah, I'm actually in charge of the technical side of the mining business. So, basically the team is working on solutions, leverage our ICT background to bring that digital technology to the mining industry.
Steve Saunders: Yeah, and what are the capabilities that Huawei deploys to help mining companies be successful?
Jun Xu: I think that Steve, our talk about two parts. One part we call the foundational technology, like networking connectivities. You have to have a good connectivity to be able to talk about others, right? So, Huawei as you may know, we have 5G technologies, we have wifi, ERT, which are 40, technology are still widely used, and also fiber optics. So, we call those fundamental connectivity technology. Those are really vertical or industry agnostic. So, we provide those technologies. And also on top of that, we have IT solutions, router, switches, and also servers, storage, cloud solution, and also platforms.
Steve Saunders: A full portfolio.
Jun Xu: Full portfolio.
Steve Saunders: Yeah.
Jun Xu: And in the mining business unit, not only providing that we are trying to work with the customer, the miners, to come up with scenario based solution. For example, autonomous driving, remote operation. So, we went from just a few fundamental technology provider to a solution provider-
Steve Saunders: Vertical solution.
Jun Xu: The kind of vertical solution, right? Partner with the customer and also partner with the ecosystem to do that.
Steve Saunders: And what is the most beneficial thing about what you're doing in the mining industry for that industry? Is it saving money? Is it making them more profitable or is it actually saving lives?
Jun Xu: I think this mining is a very unique industry. The top one concern it's always safety, right? So everywhere, not China, outside of China, everywhere. So, safety, right? Safety of the people, safety of the equipment, safety of the operation. So, I think a lot of technology we are providing, we have that in mind. How to help the miners to improve on safety. For example, back to the networking, you have to have a good network to be able to provide positioning solution, the miners want to know where are everybody down there, where are they? And they also want to know where are their equipment. So, that need a good connectivity to be able to track everything down. So, I think definitely safety is always number one, safety number one, productivity and I mean everybody want to have a better productivity, right?
Steve Saunders: But some of this technology is used for actually remote operation of equipment as well. So, you don't actually have to have human beings in some of those jobs anymore, is that right?
Jun Xu: I think it's remote control is we try to take some of those positions, some of those rules from the field, not get rid of that rule, actually move that rule from onsite to offsite.
Steve Saunders: So, you're doing the same job, but from a safer position.
Jun Xu: You can have a tie to operate that machine in a AC room instead of down there. Some of those positions.
Steve Saunders: Yeah. Fantastic. And the technology you use at the bottom of the mine for tracking employees, equipment, and remote control, it's not wifi. I was very surprised. I assumed you would be using wifi lands or some technology, but it's actually 5G, is that right?
Jun Xu: Not everywhere. Not everywhere, yes. In China we definitely have a lot of 5G deployment. In other areas, in other part of the world because of the spectrum issues or others, we may use other technology. Wifi actually is another good options, wifi six, wifi six mesh. Yeah, we deploy quite a few in South Africa, Latin America underground operations.
Steve Saunders: But from my perspective of 5G was it was for use outdoors, and now you're using it in mines under the ground. I think that's interesting. But is that an easy application to implement over 5G? Is it a good technology for that?
Jun Xu: It is, it is a very good technology. We look at, I mean the network, that technology available to us, so there's really no one network technology can satisfy all the requirements, right? Anyway, as a network, I wish there is one, one silver bullet say, Hey, just do this network, replace everything. But right now they all have their own pro and cons, right? But 5G so far in many of the areas are superior to others in terms of bandwidth, latency, [inaudible 00:06:20]. As I said before this, because the 5G standard, when they design the standard, they have this industry application in mind, not other application, 4G was really consumer consumer traffic. But now the main difference between the consumer application and the industry application is the requirement different, what they put us network to do a difference.
Steve Saunders: Yeah. I mean it's really groundbreaking in more than one sense of the word. Obviously the business is successful. What plans do you have for its expansion?
Jun Xu: What our approach for the last two years, we work with the largest mining companies in China, that's our approach, right? As I said here in MWC, how Huawei get so successful with the service provider is initially we work with the larger service provider like Water Phones, Telefónica, China Mobile, so to develop solutions for those largest service providers. What we are taking a similar approach, we are working with the largest mine operators today to acquire those industry specific knowledge quickly to combine with our technology to develop solutions. I think the expansion for us is twofold. One is some of those technologies getting mature, then we can quickly replicate it across the industry. And also for the last two years, we spend most of the time in China. So, now I think the other dimensional expansion is how to bring those technologies that we build in China's mature, even all that across the globe. I think that's what we want to do.
Steve Saunders: Well, there are a lot of mines around the world, but what about other industries? I mean, you're obviously learning so much through this very interesting vertical application in the mines, but there are many other dangerous heavy industries around the world. Do you think there's an application for this technology in those?
Jun Xu: Totally. Totally. As I said, some of the technology are really vertical agnostic. They can apply to other verticals quickly. I think what we learned through this, focusing on this mining area, mining industry of this niche, really learn another side effect is we know how to, if we want to, we really can apply this knowledge to other industry. How should we do it? As a technology vendor, it's not easy. I mean, all the technology vendor tried, want to be some kind of vertical player, but it's very hard to do.
Steve Saunders: Do one at a time.
Jun Xu: Yeah.
Steve Saunders: Yes, exactly. I would love to come to China and have a look at the technology in person. Would it be possible for you to host me?
Jun Xu: Steve, more than happy to do that, okay anywhere. Anywhere.
Steve Saunders: Let's do it this year.
Jun Xu: Welcome to China.
Steve Saunders: Thank you.
Jun Xu: Finally, the COVID is gone. I mean now the travel is ever open.
Steve Saunders: Exactly.
Jun Xu: I think it's time to go to China.
Steve Saunders: I think it's time to actually go and see this in person. I'm very excited to do that.
Jun Xu: Thank you. Thank you.
Steve Saunders: Thank you.
Jun Xu: And looking forward.
Steve Saunders: Thank you very much.
Jun Xu: See you in China.
Steve Saunders:Thank you.
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