HONOR and Alibaba Announce Strategic AI Collaboration

Manal Saleh

Pioneering a new era of AI-driven mobile experiences through comprehensive cloud-device integration.

[Riyadh, KSA] HONOR and Alibaba officially cemented a landmark strategic cooperation agreement in Hangzhou, China. James Li, CEO of HONOR Device Co., Ltd. and Eddie Wu, CEO of Alibaba Group, jointly witnessed the signing.

(Left: James Li, Right: Eddie Wu. Alibaba Group and HONOR deepen strategic cooperation to drive the next generation of intelligent interaction through AI.)

This pivotal strategic cooperation agreement is built upon a shared vision for growth and strategic imperatives. The two industry leaders are embarking on a comprehensive, multi-faceted, and systematic collaboration, focusing on critical strategic areas including AI ecosystems, AI models and capabilities, and intelligent services. Together, we aim to cultivate a thriving AI ecosystem, seizing the immense opportunities presented by AI-driven industrial transformation and the convergence of intelligent device ecosystems.

In the realm of AI agent ecosystems, HONOR and Alibaba will leverage their distinct technological and ecological strengths in AI agents, large AI models, intelligent services, and innovative application experiences. This will translate into comprehensive and deep cooperation across a multitude of core service scenarios, including travel navigation, tourism services, lifestyle, mobile office, e-commerce, and entertainment. The partnership will foster technical exchanges and resource sharing across different fields, jointly exploring new groundbreaking features and interaction paradigms for mobile devices.

For AI models and capabilities, the collaboration will center on joint development based on the Qwen open-source model. This includes vertical application models for on-device AI, AI agents, and multimodal understanding and generation. The ultimate goal is to co-create a globally leading "cloud-device integrated" intelligent device experience, seamlessly merging the power of the Qwen large model with HONOR's cutting-edge hardware, operating systems, and diverse scenarios. This joint effort will accelerate the evolution of large model technology which focuses on scenario-specific and on-device improvements, delivering more intelligent, personalized, secure, and fluid AI services and experiences to HONOR MagicOS users.

Furthermore, the two powerhouses will double down on their collaboration on MaaS (Model-as-a-Service) AI capabilities. This involves continuous optimization of performance and integration of capabilities across text, multimodal, image, video, and voice scenarios. We will jointly explore training, fine-tuning, and inference processes for both on-device and cloud AI models, whether based on the Qwen open-source model or developed collaboratively. The ambition is to forge advanced on-device models that achieve State-of-the-Art (SOTA) capabilities.

Looking ahead, this deep cooperation will continue to expand. Leveraging Alibaba's extensive commercial service ecosystem and through the MCP (Multi-Cloud Platform) protocol, a series of vertical intelligent agents, such as Ele.me (food delivery), Damai (ticketing), and Taopiaopiao (movie ticketing), will be progressively integrated. This will extend the Agent ecosystem to a wider array of vertical scenarios, including food delivery, entertainment, office collaboration, and e-commerce, providing users with even more convenient and efficient life services.

This initiative will embed AI technology more deeply into daily life. HONOR's upcoming HONOR Magic8 Series, poised to define the most powerful self-evolving AI native smartphone, will also bring users a wealth of AI usage scenarios and services jointly developed by HONOR and Alibaba in China.

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About HONOR 

HONOR is a global leading AI device ecosystem company. It is committed to revolutionizing human-to-device interactions to bridge the AI ecosystem with all consumers in the agentic AI era and beyond. The company endeavors to open industrial boundaries through open, seamless collaboration to co-create a value-sharing ecosystem with industry partners. With an innovative product portfolio spanning AI phones, PCs, tablets, wearables and more, HONOR aims to empower every human, enabling everyone to embrace the new intelligent world.

For more information, please visit HONOR online at www.honor.com or email newsroom@honor.com  

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