Barcelona, Spain - Honor, the Chinese smartphone brand that spun off from Huawei, has announced plans to invest $10 billion in artificial intelligence (AI) over the next five years. The announcement was made by Honor CEO George Zhao on February 2nd in Barcelona, ahead of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025.

Zhao stated that the massive investment aims to expand Honor's AI ecosystem, starting with AI-powered smartphones focused on enhancing user experience. The company plans to extend AI capabilities to its PCs, tablets, and wearable devices.

Honor is currently collaborating with major Chinese tech companies like Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance to integrate AI features into its smartphones. Recently, they announced the integration of the DeepSeek R1 model into their virtual assistant and search engine, Yoyo. Globally, Honor has partnered with Google to incorporate the Gemini AI model into its devices.

Originally Huawei's budget smartphone line, Honor was sold to a consortium including the Shenzhen municipal government in 2020 following US sanctions against Huawei.

According to market research firm IDC, Honor held a 13.7% share of China's smartphone shipments in the fourth quarter of last year, ranking fifth behind Apple, Vivo, Huawei, and Xiaomi.

Honor is currently pursuing an initial public offering (IPO), although specific details have not been disclosed.

[ⓒ Global Economic Times. 무단전재-재배포 금지]