HarmonyOS brings IoT power to coal mines

Huawei-China Energy Investment tie-up to explore scope in industrial settings

Huawei Technologies Co's self-developed operating system HarmonyOS is now being used in the mining sector, the technology giant announced in Beijing on Tuesday.

Huawei has partnered China Energy Investment Corp to explore how to use its OS, which can power the internet of things or IoT, to boost efficiency in coal mines and create a benchmark for the application of HarmonyOS in mining.

With this, Huawei has for the first time extended HarmonyOS from consumer-oriented scenarios to industrial settings for commercial use.

Customized as HarmonyOS for Mining, the operating system's variant brings the power of the IoT to mining and breaks the connection gap between agreements and equipment. It also provides services for the digital and intelligent transformation of the coal industry.

According to Huawei, Harmony-OS for Mining will now bring the advantage of the system's famed connected features to mining.

In March, Huawei established a dedicated group whose Chinese nomenclature translates to Huawei Coal Mine Corps. The group's vision is to bring digital technology to every mine and build smart mines with all things connected. Its mission is to work with partners to create a world-class smart mine solution to achieve mine safety, require deployment of fewer people in mines, and green efficiency.

According to Huawei, Harmony-OS for Mining is already being used to offer miners' safety assistance, support robot inspection, and other areas in several mines of China Energy Investment Corp.

HarmonyOS for Mining signifies Huawei's efforts to leverage its prowess in areas like 5G, artificial intelligence and cloud computing to help traditional sectors accelerate their digital transformation.

Experts said Huawei's efforts to apply a variant of HarmonyOS in industrial internet showcase the company's ambition in the IoT era. The industrial internet refers to the convergence of industrial systems with the power of advanced computing, analytics, sensing and new levels of connectivity.

Wang Zhiqin, deputy head of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, a government think tank, said in an earlier interview that industrial internet is a typical application of 5G and it will enable the superfast wireless technology to upgrade a wide range of traditional sectors.

Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business group, said on Monday that more than 100 million users have upgraded their smartphones' operating system to HarmonyOS 2.

HarmonyOS was first unveiled in August 2019, and it has been used in smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, as well as third-party companies' home appliances like ovens and smoke exhaust ventilators.

Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Information Consumption Alliance, a telecom industry association, said HarmonyOS' application in mining bears testimony to Huawei's technological strengths and the operating system's future potential.