Honor CEO George Zhao (left) and GSMA CEO John Hoffman on stage at Mobile World Congress Shanghai during the awards ceremony on June 27, 2024.
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HANGZHOU, China — The transformative power of artificial intelligence is worthless unless user data is protected, George Zhao, CEO of Chinese smartphone company Honor, told CNBC in an exclusive interview on Thursday.
His comments are as follows apple Google announced this month that it will begin rolling out custom AI tools to select devices in the United States this fall.
Honor already integrates some AI functions, such as enabling users to open text messages and other notifications just by looking at them, or eliminating the copy-and-paste steps by linking Yelp-like apps directly to navigation or ride-hailing apps.
Honor unveiled new AI tools at Mobile World Congress in Shanghai this week to detect deepfakes in videos, and to simulate lenses that can reduce myopia during long hours of screen time.
Zhao emphasized that Honor’s approach is to keep AI operations involving personal data confined to the smartphone. This is also known as on-device AI, and contrasts with AI tools that leverage cloud computing to operate.
“Without data security and user privacy protection, AI will be worthless. This has always been one of our value propositions,” Zhao said in Chinese, as translated by CNBC.
“We say user data never leaves (the device),” Zhao said. “This is the principle we adhere to.”
Apple Intelligence, the iPhone’s AI product, claims to use on-device processing and relies on “server-based models” for more complex requests. Apple said the new “private cloud” never stores user data.
Honor says the AI on the device is self-developed, and the company is working with it. Baidu And Google Cloud for some other AI features.
“In general, I see the development of AI so far taking two directions. Network AI is becoming more powerful. But I believe on-device AI, in its capabilities and empowerment for consumers, will become more intimate and understanding,” Zhao said.
“It will provide consumers with more support and help them interact with the future world of artificial intelligence,” he added.
Zhao noted that many generative AI applications, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, require large amounts of computing power that far exceed the capacity of a single smartphone battery.
This means they need to use the cloud, which raises questions about the security of data transfer.
Balancing AI capabilities, energy use and data privacy is a “big challenge” for manufacturers, Zhao said.
A system that collects a lot of user data to offer more personalized features becomes a “powerful” being compared to the individual using the system, he said.
“In the future development of smartphones, our goal is for the individual to become stronger,” Zhao said.
“When the body becomes stronger, it reveals the smallness of the individual in its existence. I believe that mobile devices need to empower and enable individuals.”
The Honor Magic V2, the latest foldable smartphone from the Chinese manufacturer, is being showcased at the Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona, Spain.
Norfoto | Norfoto | Getty Images
Honor's Magic V2 foldable phone, which was launched in China last summer and in Europe earlier this year, won the 'Best Smartphone in Asia' award at the Shanghai Mobile Show this week.
The Magic V2 folds to be almost as thin as an iPhone.
Honor is set to launch the Magic V3 in July with the company's latest AI functionality.
When asked if the new foldable device would be thinner, Zhao would only say: “Of course, we need to challenge ourselves, right?”
