OBSERVER REPORT
BEIJING As nations across the Middle East develop their digital infrastructure, Charles Yang, President of Huawei Middle East, notes that some of the most important advancements this decade will be a result of breakthroughs in basic research. The strength of industry over the past 1,000 years has come from a consistent focus on what we call ‘basic research’. This means looking at the foundations of mathematics and mechanics, optics, biology, and physics. Of course all companies need to undertake research and development to ensure that their products remain competitive. Yet this day-to-day innovation is more incremental, and must be contrasted with more disruptive innovation in basic research that leads to entirely new types of industries and services. Theoretical advances in basic research triggered the invention of things like the steam engine and the nuclear reactor, and are the types of breakthroughs we must continue to prioritise in the decade ahead. This view was supported in the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2019 which noted that shifting the focus from innovation quantity to innovation quality remains a global priority. Today the tech sector is an unparalleled champion of basic research. Global R&D has been driven most aggressively by the ICT service sector and producers, according to the 2019 Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard. BCG’s annual Most Innovative Companies List has also highlighted the crucial role of technology in innovation, and the impact of digital technologies on both digital natives and more traditional industries. It’s perhaps no surprise that nearly all of the most innovative companies for 2019 were technology brands. A great example of basic research breakthroughs is the current proliferation of 5G connectivity. The investigation into polar codes by professor Dr. ErdalArikan—initially published in 2008 and which was backed by Huawei—defined an entirely new approach to maximising the rate and reliability of data transmission. That breakthrough in basic research ultimately led to the earlier-than-expected commercialisation of 5G technologies beginning in 2019. Looking to the decade ahead, there is much we are still trying to understand with basic research. The ICT industry is running into many bottlenecks after 50 years of high-speed development. The times call for new theoretical breakthroughs and a new innovation strategy. At Huawei, we refer to this as moving from Innovation 1.0 to Innovation 2.0, wherein we look at not just technological and engineering innovations but theoretical breakthroughs and inventions.
