(Yicai) Sept. 22 -- Huawei Technologies has launched the Tiangong Initiative, pledging to invest CNY1 billion (USD140.6 million) in funds and resources to support the development of the HarmonyOS artificial intelligence ecosystem.

The Tiangong Initiative will focus on incubating over 10,000 AI-native meta-services, 1,000 intention frameworks, and 5,000 intelligent agents, and accelerate the development of AI-native components, including meta-computing platforms, Herman Zhu, president of Huawei’s consumer cloud service business, said at Huawei Connect 2025 on Sept. 20.

The number of terminal devices running HarmonyOS 5 has exceeded 17 million, according to the latest data from Huawei. However, HarmonyOS still faces challenges in building a robust app ecosystem compared to iOS and Android despite rapid growth, industry insiders said, adding that the Tiangong Initiative is Huawei’s strategic response to address this gap.

Huawei will open-source its Xiaoyi intelligent agent platform, offering four development models and over 50 development components to lower the barrier for creating intelligent agents, Zhu noted.

Global tech giants are fiercely competing for the intelligent agent space. For example, Google leverages its strong AI expertise to maintain a first-mover advantage in voice assistants, while Apple introduced Apple Intelligence, redefining app experiences at the system level.

Leveraging HarmonyOS’ architecture, Huawei has built a seamless cross-device AI experience, allowing users to switch AI services effortlessly between smartphones, tablets, and in-car systems.

At Huawei Connect, the company showcased its Xiaoyi Task Space function, which can autonomously schedule over 120 tools and third-party agents across eight major scenarios, including office productivity and travel planning.

Intelligent agents will deliver personalized experiences for mid-to-high-end users, said Guo Tianxiang, research manager at International Data Corporation China. Smartphone manufacturers are now advancing into the second phase of AI phones, focusing on on-device AI models to achieve true AI differentiation, he added.

Technological shifts, from the personal computer era’s search model to the mobile era’s app ecosystem to the emerging intelligent agent era, are reshaping business landscapes, a spokesperson from Huawei’s consumer cloud service business said at Huawei Connect. “In the intelligent agent era, small- and medium-sized developers have an opportunity to break through traffic barriers,” they noted.

“The industry is focused on HarmonyOS’ exploration of AI and meta services, but such endeavors cannot solely rely on Huawei,” according to a staffer at Chinese fintech giant Ant Group’s mobile technology division. “It requires collaboration with thousands of apps across various industries.”

OpenHarmony has attracted over 9,200 contributors and has launched more than 1,300 software and hardware products spanning industries such as finance, transportation, and education, since the distributed operating system was open-sourced five years ago, according to Huawei data.

Huawei has received over 10 million user feedback submissions for OpenHarmony, 96 percent of which were addressed promptly.

Editor: Futura Costaglione