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My focus for the last couple of years has been understanding and addressing the biggest challenges facing Facebook. This means taking positions on important issues concerning the future of the internet. In this note, I’ll outline our vision and principles around building a privacy-focused messaging and social networking platform. There’s a lot to do here, and we’re committed to working openly and consulting with experts across society as we develop this.

Over the last 15 years, Facebook and Instagram have helped people connect with friends, communities, and interests in the digital equivalent of a town square. But people increasingly also want to connect privately in the digital equivalent of the living room. As I think about the future of the internet, I believe a privacy-focused communications platform will become even more important than today’s open platforms. Privacy gives people the freedom to be themselves and connect more naturally, which is why we build social networks.

Today we already see that private messaging, ephemeral stories, and small groups are by far the fastest growing areas of online communication. There are a number of reasons for this. Many people prefer the intimacy of communicating one-on-one or with just a few friends. People are more cautious of having a permanent record of what they’ve shared. And we all expect to be able to do things like payments privately and securely.

Public social networks will continue to be very important in people’s lives — for connecting with everyone you know, discovering new people, ideas and content, and giving people a voice more broadly. People find these valuable every day, and there are still a lot of useful services to build on top of them. But now, with all the ways people also want to interact privately, there’s also an opportunity to build a simpler platform that’s focused on privacy first.

I understand that many people don’t think Facebook can or would even want to build this kind of privacy-focused platform — because frankly we don’t currently have a strong reputation for building privacy protective services, and we’ve historically focused on tools for more open sharing. But we’ve repeatedly shown that we can evolve to build the services that people really want, including in private messaging and stories.

I believe the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won’t stick around forever. This is the future I hope we will help bring about.

We plan to build this the way we’ve developed WhatsApp: focus on the most fundamental and private use case — messaging — make it as secure as possible, and then build more ways for people to interact on top of that, including calls, video chats, groups, stories, businesses, payments, commerce, and ultimately a platform for many other kinds of private services.

This privacy-focused platform will be built around several principles:
Private interactions. People should have simple, intimate places where they have clear control over who can communicate with them and confidence that no one else can access what they share.
Encryption. People’s private communications should be secure. End-to-end encryption prevents anyone — including us — from seeing what people share on our services.
Reducing Permanence. People should be comfortable being themselves, and should not have to worry about what they share coming back to hurt them later. So we won’t keep messages or stories around for longer than necessary to deliver the service or longer than people want them.

Safety. People should expect that we will do everything we can to keep them safe on our services within the limits of what’s possible in an encrypted service.

Interoperability. People should be able to use any of our apps to reach their friends, and they should be able to communicate across networks easily and securely.

Secure data storage. People should expect that we won’t store sensitive data in countries with weak records on human rights like privacy and freedom of expression in order to protect data from being improperly accessed.

Over the next few years, we plan to rebuild more of our services around these ideas. The decisions we’ll face along the way will mean taking positions on important issues concerning the future of the internet. We understand there are a lot of tradeoffs to get right, and we’re committed to consulting with experts and discussing the best way forward. This will take some time, but we’re not going to develop this major change in our direction behind closed doors. We’re going to do this as openly and collaboratively as we can because many of these issues affect different parts of society.

Private Interactions as a Foundation
For a service to feel private, there must never be any doubt about who you are communicating with. We’ve worked hard to build privacy into all our products, including those for public sharing. But one great property of messaging services is that even as your contacts list grows, your individual threads and groups remain private. As your friends evolve over time, messaging services evolve gracefully and remain intimate.

This is different from broader social networks, where people can accumulate friends or followers until the services feel more public. This is well-suited to many important uses — telling all your friends about something, using your voice on important topics, finding communities of people with similar interests, following creators and media, buying and selling things, organizing fundraisers, growing businesses, or many other things that benefit from having everyone you know in one place. Still, when you see all these experiences together, it feels more like a town square than a more intimate space like a living room.

There is an opportunity to build a platform that focuses on all of the ways people want to interact privately. This sense of privacy and intimacy is not just about technical features — it is designed deeply into the feel of the service overall. In WhatsApp, for example, our team is obsessed with creating an intimate environment in every aspect of the product. Even where we’ve built features that allow for broader sharing, it’s still a less public experience. When the team built groups, they put in a size limit to make sure every interaction felt private. When we shipped stories on WhatsApp, we limited public content because we worried it might erode the feeling of privacy to see lots of public content — even if it didn’t actually change who you’re sharing with.

In a few years, I expect future versions of Messenger and WhatsApp to become the main ways people communicate on the Facebook network. We’re focused on making both of these apps faster, simpler, more private and more secure, including with end-to-end encryption. We then plan to add more ways to interact privately with your friends, groups, and businesses. If this evolution is successful, interacting with your friends and family across the Facebook network will become a fundamentally more private experience.

Encryption and Safety
People expect their private communications to be secure and to only be seen by the people they’ve sent them to — not hackers, criminals, over-reaching governments, or even the people operating the services they’re using.

There is a growing awareness that the more entities that have access to your data, the more vulnerabilities there are for someone to misuse it or for a cyber attack to expose it. There is also a growing concern among some that technology may be centralizing power in the hands of governments and companies like ours. And some people worry that our services could access their messages and use them for advertising or in other ways they don’t expect.

End-to-end encryption is an important tool in developing a privacy-focused social network. Encryption is decentralizing — it limits services like ours from seeing the content flowing through them and makes it much harder for anyone else to access your information. This is why encryption is an increasingly important part of our online lives, from banking to healthcare services. It’s also why we built end-to-end encryption into WhatsApp after we acquired it.

In the last year, I’ve spoken with dissidents who’ve told me encryption is the reason they are free, or even alive. Governments often make unlawful demands for data, and while we push back and fight these requests in court, there’s always a risk we’ll lose a case — and if the information isn’t encrypted we’d either have to turn over the data or risk our employees being arrested if we failed to comply. This may seem extreme, but we’ve had a case where one of our employees was actually jailed for not providing access to someone’s private information even though we couldn’t access it since it was encrypted.

At the same time, there are real safety concerns to address before we can implement end-to-end encryption across all of our messaging services. Encryption is a powerful tool for privacy, but that includes the privacy of people doing bad things. When billions of people use a service to connect, some of them are going to misuse it for truly terrible things like child exploitation, terrorism, and extortion. We have a responsibility to work with law enforcement and to help prevent these wherever we can. We are working to improve our ability to identify and stop bad actors across our apps by detecting patterns of activity or through other means, even when we can’t see the content of the messages, and we will continue to invest in this work. But we face an inherent tradeoff because we will never find all of the potential harm we do today when our security systems can see the messages themselves.

Finding the right ways to protect both privacy and safety is something societies have historically grappled with. There are still many open questions here and we’ll consult with safety experts, law enforcement and governments on the best ways to implement safety measures. We’ll also need to work together with other platforms to make sure that as an industry we get this right. The more we can create a common approach, the better.

On balance, I believe working towards implementing end-to-end encryption for all private communications is the right thing to do. Messages and calls are some of the most sensitive private conversations people have, and in a world of increasing cyber security threats and heavy-handed government intervention in many countries, people want us to take the extra step to secure their most private data. That seems right to me, as long as we take the time to build the appropriate safety systems that stop bad actors as much as we possibly can within the limits of an encrypted service. We’ve started working on these safety systems building on the work we’ve done in WhatsApp, and we’ll discuss them with experts through 2019 and beyond before fully implementing end-to-end encryption. As we learn more from those experts, we’ll finalize how to roll out these systems.

Reducing Permanence
We increasingly believe it’s important to keep information around for shorter periods of time. People want to know that what they share won’t come back to hurt them later, and reducing the length of time their information is stored and accessible will help.

One challenge in building social tools is the “permanence problem”. As we build up large collections of messages and photos over time, they can become a liability as well as an asset. For example, many people who have been on Facebook for a long time have photos from when they were younger that could be embarrassing. But people also really love keeping a record of their lives. And if all posts on Facebook and Instagram disappeared, people would lose access to a lot of valuable knowledge and experiences others have shared.

I believe there’s an opportunity to set a new standard for private communication platforms — where content automatically expires or is archived over time. Stories already expire after 24 hours unless you archive them, and that gives people the comfort to share more naturally. This philosophy could be extended to all private content.

For example, messages could be deleted after a month or a year by default. This would reduce the risk of your messages resurfacing and embarrassing you later. Of course you’d have the ability to change the timeframe or turn off auto-deletion for your threads if you wanted. And we could also provide an option for you to set individual messages to expire after a few seconds or minutes if you wanted.

It also makes sense to limit the amount of time we store messaging metadata. We use this data to run our spam and safety systems, but we don’t always need to keep it around for a long time. An important part of the solution is to collect less personal data in the first place, which is the way WhatsApp was built from the outset.

Interoperability
People want to be able to choose which service they use to communicate with people. However, today if you want to message people on Facebook you have to use Messenger, on Instagram you have to use Direct, and on WhatsApp you have to use WhatsApp. We want to give people a choice so they can reach their friends across these networks from whichever app they prefer.

We plan to start by making it possible for you to send messages to your contacts using any of our services, and then to extend that interoperability to SMS too. Of course, this would be opt-in and you will be able to keep your accounts separate if you’d like.

There are privacy and security advantages to interoperability. For example, many people use Messenger on Android to send and receive SMS texts. Those texts can’t be end-to-end encrypted because the SMS protocol is not encrypted. With the ability to message across our services, however, you’d be able to send an encrypted message to someone’s phone number in WhatsApp from Messenger.

This could also improve convenience in many experiences where people use Facebook or Instagram as their social network and WhatsApp as their preferred messaging service. For example, lots of people selling items on Marketplace list their phone number so people can message them about buying it. That’s not ideal, because you’re giving strangers your phone number. With interoperability, you’d be able to use WhatsApp to receive messages sent to your Facebook account without sharing your phone number — and the buyer wouldn’t have to worry about whether you prefer to be messaged on one network or the other.

You can imagine many simple experiences like this — a person discovers a business on Instagram and easily transitions to their preferred messaging app for secure payments and customer support; another person wants to catch up with a friend and can send them a message that goes to their preferred app without having to think about where that person prefers to be reached; or you simply post a story from your day across both Facebook and Instagram and can get all the replies from your friends in one place.

You can already send and receive SMS texts through Messenger on Android today, and we’d like to extend this further in the future, perhaps including the new telecom RCS standard. However, there are several issues we’ll need to work through before this will be possible. First, Apple doesn’t allow apps to interoperate with SMS on their devices, so we’d only be able to do this on Android. Second, we’d need to make sure interoperability doesn’t compromise the expectation of encryption that people already have using WhatsApp. Finally, it would create safety and spam vulnerabilities in an encrypted system to let people send messages from unknown apps where our safety and security systems couldn’t see the patterns of activity.

These are significant challenges and there are many questions here that require further consultation and discussion. But if we can implement this, we can give people more choice to use their preferred service to securely reach the people they want.

Secure Data Storage
People want to know their data is stored securely in places they trust. Looking at the future of the internet and privacy, I believe one of the most important decisions we’ll make is where we’ll build data centers and store people’s sensitive data.

There’s an important difference between providing a service in a country and storing people’s data there. As we build our infrastructure around the world, we’ve chosen not to build data centers in countries that have a track record of violating human rights like privacy or freedom of expression. If we build data centers and store sensitive data in these countries, rather than just caching non-sensitive data, it could make it easier for those governments to take people’s information.

Upholding this principle may mean that our services will get blocked in some countries, or that we won’t be able to enter others anytime soon. That’s a tradeoff we’re willing to make. We do not believe storing people’s data in some countries is a secure enough foundation to build such important internet infrastructure on.
Of course, the best way to protect the most sensitive data is not to store it at all, which is why WhatsApp doesn’t store any encryption keys and we plan to do the same with our other services going forward.

But storing data in more countries also establishes a precedent that emboldens other governments to seek greater access to their citizen’s data and therefore weakens privacy and security protections for people around the world. I think it’s important for the future of the internet and privacy that our industry continues to hold firm against storing people’s data in places where it won’t be secure.

Next Steps
Over the next year and beyond, there are a lot more details and tradeoffs to work through related to each of these principles. A lot of this work is in the early stages, and we are committed to consulting with experts, advocates, industry partners, and governments — including law enforcement and regulators — around the world to get these decisions right.
At the same time, working through these principles is only the first step in building out a privacy-focused social platform. Beyond that, significant thought needs to go into all of the services we build on top of that foundation — from how people do payments and financial transactions, to the role of businesses and advertising, to how we can offer a platform for other private services.

But these initial questions are critical to get right. If we do this well, we can create platforms for private sharing that could be even more important to people than the platforms we’ve already built to help people share and connect more openly.

Doing this means taking positions on some of the most important issues facing the future of the internet. As a society, we have an opportunity to set out where we stand, to decide how we value private communications, and who gets to decide how long and where data should be stored.

I believe we should be working towards a world where people can speak privately and live freely knowing that their information will only be seen by who they want to see it and won’t all stick around forever. If we can help move the world in this direction, I will be proud of the difference we’ve made.

One year ago this week, I was in Montgomery County, Tennessee to break ground for a new data center in Clarksville. It was clear from the excitement at the event that the jobs and economic investment meant a great deal to the community. I’ve seen that same optimism in communities around the country that are helping to power our digital economy. And I’m proud to say that our U.S. footprint is growing rapidly: In the last year, we’ve hired more than 10,000 people in the U.S. and made over $9 billion in investments. Our expansion across the U.S. has been crucial to finding great new talent, improving the services that people use every day, and investing in our business.

Today we’re announcing over $13 billion in investments throughout 2019 in data centers and offices across the U.S., with major expansions in 14 states. These new investments will give us the capacity to hire tens of thousands of employees, and enable the creation of more than 10,000 new construction jobs in Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia. With this new investment, Google will now have a home in 24 total states, including data centers in 13 communities. 2019 marks the second year in a row we’ll be growing faster outside of the Bay Area than in it.

This growth will allow us to invest in the communities where we operate, while we improve the products and services that help billions of people and businesses globally. Our new data center investments, in particular, will enhance our ability to provide the fastest and most reliable services for all our users and customers. As part of our commitment to our 100 percent renewable energy purchasing, we’re also making significant renewable energy investments in the U.S. as we grow. Our data centers make a significant economic contribution to local communities, as do the associated $5 billion in energy investments that our energy purchasing supports.

Midwest
We’re continuing to expand our presence in Chicago and are developing new data centers in Ohio and Nebraska. The Wisconsin office is set to move into a larger space in the next few months—and last November we opened a Detroit office in Little Caesars Arena, where you can see into the space where the Detroit Red Wings play.

South
With new office and data center development, our workforce in Virginia will double. And with a new office in Georgia, our workforce will double there as well. Data centers in Oklahoma and South Carolina will expand, and we’re developing a new office and data center in Texas.

Northeast
Massachusetts has one of our largest sales and engineering communities outside of the Bay Area, and we’re building new office space there. In New York, the Google Hudson Square campus—a major product, engineering and business hub—will come to life over the next couple of years.

West
We’ll open our first data center in Nevada and will expand our Washington office, a key product and engineering hub. In addition to investments in the Bay Area, our investments in California continue with the redevelopment of the Westside Pavillion, and the Spruce Goose Hangar in the Los Angeles area.

All of this growth is only possible with our local partners. Thank you for welcoming Google into your communities—we look forward to working together to grow our economy and support jobs in the U.S.

Facebook has announced a new partnership with the Technical University of Munich (TUM) to support the creation of an independent AI ethics research center. The Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence, which is supported by an initial funding grant from Facebook of $7.5 million over five years, will help advance the growing field of ethical research on new technology and will explore fundamental issues affecting the use and impact of AI.

Artificial intelligence offers an immense opportunity to benefit people and communities around the world. But as AI technology increasingly impacts people and society, the academics, industry stakeholders and developers driving these advances need to do so responsibly and ensure AI treats people fairly, protects their safety, respects their privacy, and works for them.

At Facebook, ensuring the responsible and thoughtful use of AI is foundational to everything we do — from the data labels we use, to the individual algorithms we build, to the systems they are a part of. We’re developing new tools like Fairness Flow, which can help generate metrics for evaluating whether there are unintended biases in certain models. We also work with groups like the Partnership for AI, of which Facebook is a founding member, and the AI4People initiative. However, AI poses complex problems which industry alone cannot answer, and the independent academic contributions of the Institute will play a crucial role in furthering ethical research on these topics.

The Technical University of Munich is one of the top-ranked universities worldwide in the field of artificial intelligence, with work extending from fundamental research, to applications in fields like robotics and machine intelligence, to the study of the social implications of AI. The Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence will leverage the TUM’s outstanding academic expertise, resources and global network to pursue rigorous ethical research into the questions evolving technologies raise.

The Institute will also benefit from Germany’s position at the forefront of the conversation surrounding ethical frameworks for AI — including the creation of government-led ethical guidelines on autonomous driving — and its work with European institutions on these issues.

Institute Overview

Drawing on expertise across academia and industry, the Institute will conduct independent, evidence-based research to provide insight and guidance for society, industry, legislators and decision-makers across the private and public sectors. The Institute will address issues that affect the use and impact of artificial intelligence, such as safety, privacy, fairness and transparency.

Through its work, the Institute will seek to contribute to the broader conversation surrounding ethics and AI, pursuing research that can help provide tangible frameworks, methodologies and algorithmic approaches to advise AI developers and practitioners on ethical best practices to address real world challenges.

To help meet the need for thoughtful and groundbreaking academic research in these areas, Facebook looks forward to supporting the Institute and help offer an industry perspective on academic research proposals, rendering the latter more actionable and impactful.

Operational Model

The independent Institute will be led by TUM Professor Dr. Christoph Lütge, who holds degrees in business informatics and philosophy and has served as the Peter Löscher Endowed Chair of Business Ethics at TUM since 2010. Working with a diverse advisory board of representatives from academia, civil society and industry, the Institute will identify specific research questions and convene researchers focused on AI ethics and governance-related issues.

“At the TUM Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence, we will explore the ethical issues of AI and develop ethical guidelines for the responsible use of the technology in society and the economy,” Dr. Lütge said. “Our evidence-based research will address issues that lie at the interface of technology and human values. Core questions arise around trust, privacy, fairness or inclusion, for example, when people leave data traces on the internet or receive certain information by way of algorithms. We will also deal with transparency and accountability, for example in medical treatment scenarios, or with rights and autonomy in human decision-making in situations of human-AI interaction.”

While Facebook has provided initial funding, the Institute will explore other funding opportunities from additional partners and agencies. Facebook may also share insights, tools, and industry expertise related to issues such addressing algorithmic bias, in order to help Institute researchers focus on real-world problems that manifest at scale.

The Institute will also pursue opportunities to publish research and work with other experts in the field; organize conferences, symposia, and workshops; and launch educational activities with other leading institutions in common areas of interest.

Realizing AI’s huge potential for good while balancing its risks is a global effort, and it will not be accomplished overnight. The Institute is an exciting step forward in our continued commitment to partnering with academic institutions, governments, NGOs, advocacy and industry groups, and others who are working to advance AI in a safe and responsible way.

Cupertino, California — Apple today announced that App Store customers worldwide set new spending records over the holidays, wrapping up a record-breaking year. App Store spending topped $1.22 billion between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Customers also spent over $322 million on New Year’s Day 2019 alone, setting a new single-day record.
“The App Store had a record-breaking holiday week and New Year’s Day. The holiday week was our biggest week ever with more than $1.22 billion spent on apps and games, and New Year’s Day set a new single-day record at more than $322 million,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Thanks to the inspiring work of our talented developers and the support of our incredible customers around the world, the App Store finished off an outstanding 2018 and kicked off 2019 with a bang.”

Apple announced Wednesday that the App Store helped drive Services revenue to an all-time record in the holiday quarter. Apple services set new all-time records in multiple categories, including the App Store, Apple Music, Cloud Services, Apple Pay and the App Store’s search ad business.

Gaming and self-care were the most popular categories of app downloads and subscriptions during the holidays. Globally, multiplayer games including Fortnite and PUBG were among the top downloaded games over the holidays, along with Brawl Stars, Asphalt 9 and Monster Strike. Productivity, Health & Fitness and Education apps are already capturing the attention of customers in the first few days of the year with 1Password, Sweat and Lumosity charting in their respective categories.

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.

January 10, 2019 (Mountain View, CA) – BMW i Ventures announced today an investment in Tekion, a technology provider that delivers the most modern cloud platform available for the automotive retail space.

Headquartered in San Ramon, CA, Tekion was founded in 2016 by a world-class team with a unique background combining deep enterprise cloud platform understanding with automotive retail operations. Tekion comes to market with their digital Service Experience (dSE) platform, the only end-to-end digital technology for both consumers and dealership personnel that connects the entire service experience from appointment scheduling to payment and everything in-between. Thanks to a cloud-built platform with advanced machine learning and AI capabilities, Tekion can help dealers offer a personalized and seamless consumer experience.

“Tekion team has built a cutting-edge solution from ground up that seamlessly connects dealers, consumers and OEMs” said Dr. Ulrich Quay, Managing Director at BMW i Ventures. “We are convinced that Tekion will play a big part in the evolution of the dealer software industry, and we are thrilled to join the journey.”

Tekion will use the investment to expand its sales and customer support, and continue its rapid pace of product innovation.

# # #

About BMW i Ventures
BMW i Ventures, BMW’s EUR 500 Mio million venture capital fund, invests money and resources in startups in the fields of autonomous driving, digital car and automotive cloud, e-mobility, artificial Intelligence and data, industry 4.0, shared and on-demand mobility, customer digital life, and energy services. The firm has already partnered with innovative companies such as Carbon3D, Chargepoint, Claroty, DesktopMetal, Graphcore, JustPark, Life360, Moovit, Nauto, Scoop, Stratim, Turo, Xometry and Zendrive. BMW i Ventures invests in all stages from seed and incubation to growth companies.

About Tekion
Tekion is a cloud-built platform delivering business applications that are simple, fun, cool and inherent with advanced machine learning/ AI, and Human Computer Interaction (voice, touch, vision, sensors and IoT) capabilities for a personalized and seamless consumer experience. Tekion is currently focused on delivering applications and solutions for automotive OEMs and dealers that believe in transforming the automotive retail experience. Born in California’s Silicon Valley, Tekion employs over 150 innovators globally. For more information, visit www.tekion.com

Las Vegas, NV – The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and IBM today will announce the launch of the CTA Apprenticeship Coalition, a major initiative that will create thousands of new apprenticeships in 20 U.S. states and help close the skills gap companies face in hiring new employees. IBM pledged to add at least 450 apprenticeships a year for the next five years. The announcement will be made by Ginni Rometty, president and chairman, IBM during her opening at CES® 2019 – the most influential technology event in the world.

“At IBM, being an open and trusted company means going beyond the technology and working to understand and address the societal impact of it,” said Rometty. “Our commitment – and our entire industry’s obligation – is to build a workforce that is ‘tomorrow ready.’ This new Coalition allows us to scale apprenticeship programs nationwide and prepare more workers for the surging number of new collar jobs that require in-demand skills, but not always a four-year degree.”

The technology sector accounts for 10 percent of U.S. GDP and is the fastest-growing part of the American economy. But there aren’t enough skilled workers to fill the 500,000 open high-tech jobs in the U.S. And according to CTA’s Future of Work survey, tech executives report that, in the next five years, they will struggle to fill jobs in software development, data analytics and engineering.

To help solve the looming shortage of workers and ensure the tech sector remains key to America’s success, the CTA Apprenticeship Coalition provides frameworks for more than 15 different apprenticeship for careers in fast-growing fields including software engineering, data science and analytics, cybersecurity, mainframe system administration, creative design and program management. New apprenticeships will be modeled, in large part, on IBM’s successful apprenticeship program, which launched in 2017, is registered with the United States Department of Labor and has grown nearly twice as fast as expected.

The apprenticeships created by the Coalition provide pathways to tech jobs in all parts of the country — from Kansas to Minnesota to Louisiana — not only traditional tech hubs on the coasts. Its goal is to widen the aperture when it comes to hiring by placing the focus on skills rather than specific degrees. From early-career professionals to mid-career transitions and everything in between, these apprenticeships represent a new pathway to success in 21st century careers, including the growing number of new collar roles where a traditional bachelor’s degree is not always required. They also offer an opportunity to build in-demand skills without taking on student debt.

“Tech innovations are creating new jobs and careers – and apprenticeships are one of the most successful types of work-based learning and will help revitalize the U.S. workforce from coast to coast,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CTA. “We’re excited to provide our members with a free resource that allows companies to establish and scale their apprenticeship programs. The future of our nation is based on ensuring Americans are prepared for jobs of the future that can be supported by a college degree, certification or apprenticeship.”

Coalition members – including A&K Robotics, Alarm.com, Bosch, Canon U.S.A., EVERFI, Ford Motor Company, Future Ready Solutions, LOOK, OperationsInc., Phone2Action, Postmates, SoftBank Robotics, Sprint, TeamPeople, Toyota and Walmart – are committed to building their own apprenticeship programs or expanding their existing efforts.

Las Vegas, NV – Artificial intelligence (AI) and fast connectivity – critical ingredients for the next era of category leaders such as smartphones, smart home devices and smart speakers – will drive the U.S. consumer technology industry to a record-breaking $398 billion in retail revenues ($301 billion wholesale) in 2019 and 3.9 percent year-over-year (YOY) growth, which includes streaming services revenue, according to the Consumer Technology Association (CTA).

“The consumer tech sector is fast approaching another milestone – almost $400 billion in annual revenues – as more consumers embrace the efficiency, safety, entertainment and anytime/anywhere communication that technology brings to our everyday lives,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CTA. “Our latest research shows innovations in AI and faster connectivity are among the key drivers for the industry’s record growth. And CES 2019 is the very best place to see, touch, try and experience the game-changing technologies – from augmented and virtual reality to smart cities, sports tech and robotics – that are solving challenges big and small.”

Unveiled today in advance of CES® 2019, the latest edition of CTA’s flagship, semi-annual U.S. Consumer Technology Sales and Forecasts report reflects U.S. factory sales-to-dealers for more than 300 consumer tech products and related software and services. The biannual report serves as a benchmark for the U.S. consumer tech industry, charting the size and growth of underlying categories.

Emerging Technologies Expand
Among the products projected to contribute significantly to the consumer tech sector’s growth in 2019:

Smart Speakers: Voice-controlled smart speakers including Amazon Echo and Google Home are projected to sell 36.6 million units (five percent YOY increase) and earn $3.2 billion in revenue (seven percent YOY growth). Although adoption is slowing due to rapid voice integration in other devices such as TVs, smart home devices and other audio products, smart speakers remain a category to watch as consumers embrace the benefits of AI in their home.

Smart Home: Products that address home monitoring and security are driving the smart home category. CTA expects category sales – including smart thermostats, smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, IP/Wi-Fi cameras, smart locks and doorbells, smart home systems, and smart switches, dimmers and outlets – to reach 29.4 million units in 2019 (23 percent increase) and $4.6 billion (17 percent increase).

Wireless Earbuds: Wireless earbuds are a standout audio product, with double digit growth projected for the next few years. Devices including Apple AirPods and Bose SoundSport Free are expected to sell nearly 16 million units in 2019 (up 44 percent) and approach $2 billion in revenue this year (46 percent growth).

Smartwatches: As fitness tech companies shift their focus from basic trackers to more sophisticated smartwatches, this category is expected to see 20.5 million units shipping in 2019, a 25 percent increase over last year, with revenues of $4.7 billion, a 19 percent increase.

Drones: Total drone sales are expected to reach 3.4 million units (four percent increase) and just over $1 billion in revenue (four percent growth) in 2019, as more consumers and businesses adopt drones for aerial photography, drone racing and recreation.

“The future is bright for many tech products consumers already know and love, as stalwart revenue drivers including smartphones, laptops and televisions continue to innovate,” says Steve Koenig, vice president of market research, CTA. “2019 will mark the introduction of 5G-enabled devices and smartphones and next-gen screen technology such as 8K UHD televisions to the market. And constantly-evolving content from streaming services that enhances the experience across ‘the three screens’ – TVs, smartphones, laptops – will help push consumer spending in tech to new levels.”

Revenue Powerhouses
The top three revenue drivers for the industry show continued success:
Smartphones: After the introduction of premium, flagship models from major manufacturers with rising average selling prices, smartphone revenue is expected to reach $80 billion, a two percent increase in 2019. Unit shipments are expected to grow one percent to 170.7 million. This year marks the launch of the first 5G smartphones on the market. CTA expects 2019 U.S. sales will reach 2.1 million units and cross $1 billion in revenue. By 2022, 76 percent of all smartphones sold will be 5G-enabled.

Laptops: In 2019, the U.S. laptop market will sell 51 million units, up three percent over last year, and earn $28.4 billion in revenue (unchanged from 2018). Convertible models and cloud-based laptops remain high-growth areas within computing, as consumers continue to upgrade to the latest operating systems.

Televisions: Overall, unit sales of total digital displays in 2019 will remain above 42 million units (one percent decrease) and register $22.6 billion in revenue (two percent increase). More than three-quarters of TV shipments will be sets with 40-inch screens or larger. Future upgrades will be driven by 4K Ultra High-Definition (4K UHD) sets, which now make up more than half of all TV unit sales. 4K UHD will sell 22 million units (14 percent increase) and $16.4 billion in revenue (eight percent increase). Raising the bar on resolution, inaugural shipments of 8K UHD TVs will reach $545 million in revenue. And budding OLED shipments will reach 1.4 million sets with double digit growth through 2022.

In-Vehicle Tech: With more technology built into new cars than ever before, factory-installed automotive technology is projected to contribute $17 billion in revenue (nine percent increase) in 2019. Led by in-vehicle entertainment and driver-assist features such as active collision avoidance, lane keep assist and adaptive cruise control, consumer demand for advanced safety features pave the road for the self-driving car of the future.

Streaming Services Soar
Consumer spending on music and video streaming services is valued at $26 billion in revenue, 25 percent higher than last year. The availability of live TV streaming and exclusive, award-winning content through subscription video streaming services will push consumer spending to $18 billion in 2019, up 27 percent from 2018. On-demand music services (e.g., Spotify, Pandora or Apple Music) will bring in an expected $7.7 billion in revenue, up 22 percent as providers race to gain subscribers.

CTA publishes the U.S. Consumer Technology Sales and Forecasts twice a year, in January and July, reporting U.S. factory sales-to-dealers. It was designed and formulated by CTA, the most comprehensive source of sales data, forecasts, consumer research and historical trends for the consumer technology industry. For more information, visit CTA.tech/salesandforecasts.

Multi-year projections cannot account for unpredictable factors such as changes in trade laws, interest rates and federal policy. Any escalation in the trade dispute with China and potentially steeper tariffs would present significant headwinds to CTA’s forecast.

Dongguan, China – Huawei Rotating Chairman Ken Hu held a press conference with leading global media at the company’s new campus in Dongguan on Tuesday, December 18. The journalists visited R&D labs showcasing materials and thermal management technologies developed for 5G equipment, as well as an independent cybersecurity lab.

Hu delivered strong messages of confidence in Huawei’s business growth and prospects, citing the trust of hundreds of network operators, nearly half of the world’s Fortune 500 companies, and hundreds of millions of consumers. Huawei’s 2018 revenue, he said, was expected to exceed US$100 billion.

He also directly addressed recent allegations against Huawei, stating that it is best to let facts speak for themselves, while emphasizing repeatedly that the company’s security record was clean. Hu noted that there have been no serious cybersecurity incidents in 30 years.

Here are some highlights from the press conference:

• On 5G – Huawei has secured 25 commercial contracts, ranking number one among all ICT equipment providers, having already shipped more than 10,000 base stations to markets around the world. Almost all network customers have indicated they want Huawei, which is currently the market leader with the best equipment and will remain so for at least the next 12 to 18 months, for faster and more cost-effective upgrades to 5G. Some security concerns based on the technology for 5G were very legitimate, noted Hu, but able to be clarified or mitigated through collaboration with operators and governments.

“Rare cases” have arisen where some countries are using 5G issues as an excuse for groundless speculation based on “ideological or geopolitical considerations”. Security concerns disingenuously raised as excuses to block market competition would slow adoption of new technology, increase costs for network deployment, and raise prices for consumers. If Huawei were allowed to compete in the US for 5G deployment from 2017 to 2020, around US$20 billion of capital expenditure in wireless infrastructure would be saved, according to some economists.

• Cyber security – Security is Huawei’s highest priority and it overarches everything. Hu was open to a question about building cyber security evaluation centers in places such as the US and Australia, pointing to similar centers in the UK, Canada, and Germany that are designed to directly identify, address, and mitigate concerns. Huawei has subjected itself to the strictest reviews and screening by regulators and customers, while expressing understanding of legitimate concerns that some stakeholders might have.

However, no evidence indicates that Huawei equipment poses a security threat. Regarding often-quoted concerns over Chinese law, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in China had formally clarified that no law requires companies to install mandatory backdoors. Huawei remains open to concerns about its openness, transparency, and independence as well as dialogue. Any proof or evidence could be shared with telecom operators, if not to Huawei or the public at large.

• Compliance – Some journalists asked about Huawei’s CFO, Ms. Meng Wanzhou. Hu said he was unable to comment due to legal processes underway, but he did express that business operations were not being impacted by this event. Executive travel plans were not impacted, and Huawei remains very confident about its trade compliance system, which has been running since 2007. The company has confidence in the fairness and independence of the judicial systems in Canada and the US.

Hu described the company’s recent achievements as exciting, and recalled his almost 30-year history with Huawei during which its people, culture and management had grown. “This is journey of transformation that has helped us grow up from an unknown vendor to the 5G leader”. He also recognized that Huawei still faces challenges, thanking the media for interest in dialogue and appealing to employees, customers, and stakeholders.

“I’d like to share a saying from Romain Rolland”, Hu said in his closing remarks, echoing the words of the celebrated French writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.

“There is only one heroism in the world: to see the world as it is, and to love it’. At Huawei, we see what we have encountered, and we still love the work we are doing. Similarly, in Chinese, we have a saying: 道阻且长，行且将至. It means that the road ahead is long and hard, but we will keep moving and reach the destination, because we have already embarked on this journey”.

See transcript below

Opening remark

Ken Hu: Good afternoon, everyone! Welcome to our new campus. This is our largest campus in the world. We built our new manufacturing center here. We built our training center here, and our R&D center as well. And we have moved many of our employees from Shenzhen to here in Dongguan. What I have learned is that our employees are so excited about this new campus.

I believe in the morning you had a good tour of our technology lab and here in the security lab. The next time you visit here, we’ll be happy to take you on a small train tour of our very beautiful campus. This is a lakeside campus, which is very nice. I know that the holiday season is very busy for all of you, so thank you very much for taking the time to meet with us today.

This year has been so eventful, hasn’t it? So I believe you must have many questions for today’s conversation. Before we start, I would like to take this opportunity to give you a very quick update on our business progress this year, and then go on to the Q&A session.

This year business has been very good for us. We are pretty sure that, by the end of this year, we will achieve more than $100 billion U.S. dollars in total revenue.

This is a big milestone in our history. This is the first time our sales revenue has exceeded $100 billion US dollars. For different business groups, we had very satisfying growth as well.

For example, in our carrier business, which accounts for the largest part in our total portfolio, we secured more than 25 commercial contracts for 5G. Now we rank number one in terms of commercial 5G contracts. This is the result of our far-leading technological innovation across the whole industry. And we have started to ship 5G equipment to the whole world. Actually, we have already shipped more than 10,000 base stations to different markets around the world.

Our enterprise business has seen very good progress as well. We secured more and more contracts with leading global companies. This year more than 200 companies in the Fortune 500 selected Huawei as the vendor for their digital transformation. So this is a big step forward as well.

And our consumer business. We all know that our smartphones sales are very good. This year, we had a big increase in our sales revenue and shipments with the successful launch of our flagship smartphones, the P20 and Mate 20. These new smartphones bring some amazing functionality to the market, including high quality cameras and particularly artificial intelligence.

So in all three business groups we’ve had very satisfying growth this year. Particularly in October, for the first time we announced our full-stack, all-scenario artificial intelligence solution.

We have been working with artificial intelligence for around ten years, and this year we announced our solution – full- stack, all-scenario. We believe that, with this solution, we will be able to make artificial intelligence eventually become a real GPT – a general purpose technology.

We’re trying to make it more accessible and more affordable for the whole society. And we hope that, in the coming years, we will launch more exciting chipsets, hardware and software solutions for artificial intelligence to help our customers maximize the benefits of this emerging technology.

So this is the exciting growth we have achieved this year. Of course, at the same time, we’re facing some challenges. You are all aware of the allegations that have been made against Huawei this year. Despite the efforts in some markets to create fear about Huawei, and to use politics to interfere with industry growth, we are proud to say that our customers continue to trust us and recognize our contribution to the industry.

They continue to work with us, innovate with us, and build their networks with our innovative technology. We’re so grateful for their support.

When it comes to security issues, as an industry, we believe that we need to talk more about the technology and how to improve. When it comes to security allegations, it’s best to let the facts speak for themselves. And the fact is: Huawei’s record on security is clean. We believe that cyber security is a global issue. It’s an industrywide issue and we need to address it together.

Moving forward, we will continue investing in technological innovation, in broadband, cloud, artificial intelligence, and smart devices. And we believe that this continuous investment in technological innovation will help us secure solid growth in the telco sector in the coming year with faster deployment of 5G technology. It will help us to be in a stronger position in the enterprise market with digital transformation across different vertical industries. And particularly, it will help us bring more exciting and innovative devices to consumers. We are going to launch our first 5G smartphone, and we can expect a lot from that.

This is just a quick brief on our business growth and business progress. I’m very happy to talk more about that today with all of you, so we have enough time to do the Q&A session.

Now, I would like to open the floor for questions.

Q&A

Joseph Waring, Mobile World Live: Given the allegations and the fear that’s being pushed across many governments, what specific actions does Huawei plan to take in the near term or the medium term to alleviate some of that pressure? I know you have your cyber security center in the UK working with the operators there and a number of other similar facilities. Can you talk about that?

Ken Hu: We realize that the industry we’re in is undergoing faster technological transition periods. Technologies are becoming increasingly complicated. Networks are becoming more open. As a result of this, we definitely notice the increasing interest and care from network operators and regulators and also the general public about the industry. We think this is just normal.

When we look at ourselves, as I mentioned just now, Huawei’s business has been growing very fast. Our revenue will exceed 100 billion dollars very soon. We’re doing business in 170 countries in the world. About half of the Fortune 500 companies are using Huawei products. The majority of the top telecom operators have deployed Huawei’s equipment. Our smartphones are being used by hundreds of millions of consumers worldwide.

Given our scale, our size, and our presence, we definitely need to take it very seriously when we look at the concerns or interests expressed by governments, by society, and by the general public.

In that context, we are keenly aware that it is simply something we must be doing to have proactive, transparent and constructive dialogues and conversations with the governments, with local communities and with our customers.

This is exactly what we have been doing. I can briefly introduce our actions and our plans in this area. Take security, for example. Many people have expressed concerns or interests in this area. For Huawei, we take security as our highest priority and our overarching guideline.

In 2011, this positioning of security as our highest priority and overarching guideline was recognized in the form of a board resolution. That was the open letter released by our founder and CEO, Mr. Ren, addressed to the world, showing and demonstrating our serious commitment to security.

Following that positioning and the resolution, we have taken very solid steps and measures internally and externally. For example, internally, cyber security guarantee and protection have been built and implemented across our business operations from corporate governance, organizational structure, technology innovation, staff management, and IT systems as well. I believe Sean Yang in the morning may have introduced some of those to you.

Externally, when we engage with customers, regulators and the general public, we have been following a strategy or approach that we call “make white whiter” over the last ten- plus years.

In other words, we understand the concerns from our customers or regulators. Therefore, we are willing to take additional steps or go the extra mile compared to other peers in our industry.

As part of that effort, we have undergone third-party certification of Huawei’s hardware, software and our solutions, which has been done by independent 3rd parties.

If we look at the results of those certifications, we can clearly see over the past 30 years, Huawei and Huawei’s equipment has maintained a very solid and correct record in our industry when it comes to cyber security.

We have never had a serious cyber security incident for our equipment.

And also even with the most strict review and screening by regulators or our customers, there has never been any evidence showing our equipment poses a security threat.

According to a most recent report from CFI, a third party, independent auditor, Huawei’s equipment from operational stability and operational reliability point of view, has far exceeded industrial average over the past 3 years.

We will be very glad to share this report with you after this interview.

We feel very proud about this recognition from customers and the industry.

But we definitely will not relax requirements we put on ourselves, because we are keenly aware technology will become more and more complex; networks will become more open. Therefore the requirements or demands on security will just be much higher.

Therefore, we will continue to increase our investment on security and security related technologies.

In our most recent board meeting, we decided on a companywide transformation program to improve our software engineering capabilities.

The company will invest an initial special budget of $2 billion US dollars in the next five years to comprehensively improve our software engineering capabilities so our products will be better prepared for the future world.

We believe through these efforts, we will be able to continue to maintain our leading position in our industry when it comes to cyber security. We also hope with such efforts we will continue to maintain our solid cyber security track record.

We will continue to step up our efforts in terms of communicating, engaging, and collaborating with governments around the world. We will help governments to understand the track record we have had on cyber security, and we’ll also talk with the governments so they also understand the efforts and the actions we have been taking on cyber security.

For example, the internal cyber security lab you visited in the morning, that’s also the lab we make successful and open to governments and customers around the world, so through the visit and the dialogues they can understand our positioning and what we have been doing. Moving forward, we will more, let’s say, localize some of these efforts.

For example, ten years ago we set up an independent cyber security evaluation center in the UK. As a result of that, we have put in place a long-term and effective collaboration model with the stakeholders in the UK. We’re going to continue to work on that moving forward. We also have a similar arrangement in Canada. Those are the efforts we will continue to work on and strengthen.

At the same time, we are and will continue to expand similar engagement with the governments. Last month, I myself was in Bonn, participating in an opening ceremony of a security innovation lab there. This lab is essentially an open platform allowing the German government and also our customers in Germany to conduct testing of Huawei’s products around security. Such efforts have won the recognition of the German government.

The next step is to launch our security transparency center in Brussels in Q1 next year. That is also part of our longer term plan as well. We will also build and put in place similar open and transparent security management mechanisms in other parts of the world as needed.

When it comes to security in short, I would say this is an area where we take it very seriously and we pay a lot of attention to it. We have taken a lot of efforts in this area, and we’ll continue to do so having dialogue and engagement with governments around the world.

When we look at the concerns from governments of Huawei, I think there’s another part of it that we also need to address as well.

Huawei is a company that originated from China, and we are not a public company. But that does not mean we cannot achieve the same level of transparency. We have taken a lot of efforts and measures in this area as well.

Very early on we announced our ownership structure so that people all know that Huawei is a private company that is owned by its employees.

Every year we go through the most strict processes of audit before we launch our annual report, so all stakeholders will know the authenticity, integrity and independence of our business operations.

At the same time, given certain specific concerns, we have been communicating with the governments around the world around the independence of Huawei’s operations. The fact that we have never taken any requests from any governments to damage the business or networks of our customers or other countries. As I mentioned earlier, for any concern, the best way is to let the fact speak for itself. The fact is that over the last thirty years, there’s been no major cyber security incident; there’s been no cyber security threat; and there’s been no evidence showing that Huawei is damaging cyber security. And we’ll continue to take proactive communication engagement and also open collaboration so more and more people will be able to realize this.

Yang Yuan, Financial Times: I have a question about the arrest of Ms. Meng in Canada. It’s been reported before by Reuters that Skycom, which is a subsidiary of Huawei, was selling technologies from American companies to Iranian customers. And we’ve also found that Ms. Meng was a director of Skycom, and Skycom employees have described themselves as employees of Huawei. Can you clarify the relationship with Skycom and Skycom’s activities in Iran?

Ken Hu: I know you are definitely very interested in what happened recently. But since, as you might be aware, this is right now under a judicial process, I’m not in the position to provide any information at this point in time. Two points I still want to share with you.

First, we are very confident in our trade compliance management system. We started development in 2007, which covers our global businesses across our entire portfolio and the entire Huawei workforce. We believe with such a well-running trade compliance management system, we have the fundamental guarantee of our 100 billion dollars business. We have the guarantee to ensure smooth, efficient, and secure operations of our business and also to reassure our customers around the world.

Second, we have confidence in the fairness and independence of the judiciary systems in countries involved in this specific case. We look forward to a just conclusion to this matter.

Eamon Barrett, Fortune: So one of the issues that various governments have raised concerning Huawei and the potential security threat is the national intelligence law which was passed last year which would compel any industry or company to cooperate with China’s national intelligence work. Now, it’s fine to say that Huawei has never been asked by our government to infiltrate or otherwise spy on a network but if the Chinese government would come to Huawei and ask it to, what legal grounds would Huawei have to refuse such a request?

Ken Hu: First, on December 10th, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China in a press conference formally clarified that no law in China requires companies to install mandatory backdoors.

Of course, just like the US and Australia, China also has certain legal requirements for counter terrorism or cyber security objectives. China also specially emphasizes that all government institutions or agencies must enforce the law according to the law. There are clear definitions.

For Huawei, our approach is to address these issues in strict accordance to the law. In the past, we haven’t received any requests to provide improper information. In the future, we will also follow in strict accordance to the law in dealing with similar situations. When we talk about according to the law, the law has clear stipulations around the terms of reference for related agencies.

Gao Yuan, Bloomberg: We know Huawei has appointed an acting CFO after the Sabrina’s case. My question is – with the current case, if Sabrina can continue with her responsibilities as corporate CFO and what are the real implications and impacts of this case on Huawei’s operations because we have learned from some of Huawei’s international employees that if there is no financial guidance of this nature, it will have an impact on their business like procurement.

Ken Hu: Currently, our business operations are not impacted by the case in Canada. Our business operations as a company and operations in the financial system are still business as usual.

Ryan Mcmorrow, AFP: After Meng was arrested in Canada, the Chinese government arrested two Canadians on national security concerns. The Chinese government has said this is not in retaliation, but most independent experts now say it was. Does Huawei have any comments or thoughts on the arrest of these two people?

Ken Hu: No comment on that.

Eunice Yoon, CNBC: Do you think that Huawei will have any significant business in the United States and does it matter to the company for the future?

Ken Hu: Well, US is one of the biggest communications markets in the world and I would definitely not say it doesn’t matter to us. However, the reality today makes this very difficult for Huawei to enjoy business growth for reasons I think you all know.

As a result of that, our current status of US business, I would say, is very limited business. Of course we still have customers in the United States and we continue to follow our business principle of customer-centricity. We try everything we can to provide the best possible services to them and they are very satisfied with our services.

On the other hand, we also noticed that the United States is also in a development period when it comes to the digital infrastructure market.

Because Huawei cannot participate in the US market, we also notice that this is a market that is falling short of competition in a very big way.

According to some economists, from the period of 2017 to 2020, which we believe is a very important period for 5G deployment, if Huawei could participate in market competition, there would be 20 billion US dollars of savings when it comes to capital expenditure for wireless infrastructure.

At the same time, since Huawei cannot participate, HHI – which describes market concentration in certain geographies, in the US – HHI is as high as 2,500, much higher than other markets in the world, which are typically in the range of 1,000.

Since the best suppliers and the best technologies cannot be part of the market, I believe from a deployment cost point of view, this will significantly be higher. At the same time, it will substantially delay time-to-market of new technologies.

At the same time, the digital infrastructure industry dependencies highly dependent on the global supply chain. In other words, the equipment of any company in our industry relies on the global supply chain for development and manufacturing.

At the same time, when it comes to deployment, in most of the cases we can say that digital infrastructure is going to be a multi-vendor environment. It requires collaboration and partnerships with players across the industry.

From that point of view, banning a particular company from market competition cannot fundamentally address concerns about cyber security. We believe that, at the end of the day, US markets will need best technologies and best companies to participate in market competition. When that day will come, we don’t know. We have patience.

Raymond Zhong, New York Times: We saw earlier this year that ZTE almost went out of business because the US prevented it from using American technology. Obviously Huawei is not in this position. But could you explain to us what the impact could be if Huawei is someday in this position – and is the company taking steps to protect its supply chain from dependence on the US?

Ken Hu: We don’t comment on things that have not happened, but I would be very glad to share with you our thoughts and our actions on supply chain and on business continuity management.

We all know the ICT industry highly depends on a global supply chain. And Huawei is no exception.

Today we have 13,000 suppliers in our supply chain. Companies coming from Japan, US, Europe, China and many other countries in the regions. Take this year for example, our annual procurement spend would be 70 billion dollars.

From this point of view, the technology innovations of Huawei are, on the one hand, the outcome of our own efforts. On the other hand, also the close collaboration with 13,000 partners in our global value chain.

We also realize that the more globalized the nature of your supply chain is, the more vulnerable it might be. So almost 10 years ago, we started to develop a comprehensive and effective business continuity management system.

That management system covers many parts of our business: R&D, procurement, manufacturing, logistics, and also services. Over the past 10 years, with this system in place, we have successfully dealt with quite a number of emergencies.

Natural disasters like the tsunami in Japan, the flood in Thailand, the earthquake in Nepal, and also ransomware attacks as well. In order to ensure supply chain continuity, we also have to put a lot of thought when we put together our supply strategy and also when we think about how to ensure the operations of our equipment.

Our supply chain strategy, for example. We take a diversified supply strategy. That means we have a multi- sourcing strategy. We look at multiple choices in terms of technology solutions, and we also have multi-location supply networks. At the same time, since we’re working together with hundreds of telecom operators in the world, and also we are serving a significant number of enterprise customers, so we look at the full lifecycle support that is needed and build up our stock of spare parts and components to ensure support across the product lifecycle.

These are some of the actions and measures we have taken to ensure business continuity. At the same time, we think the continuity of the ICT industry chain is also important. We believe this is a topic, an issue, that the whole industry and international community need to look at.

As I mentioned earlier, we have 13,000 suppliers. Our annual procurement this year is $70 billion US dollars. If we look across the entire industry chain, or the companies or the countries involved, they are interdependent.

If any link in this global industry chain is obstructed in an unusual way, that would have a major impact on the development of the industry chain and even the economic development of countries involved.

Therefore, if we take a bigger look, society as a whole, countries involved and the industry must work together to ensure continuity of this global ICT value chain.
Steven Jiang, CNN: I’m going to have two quick follow ups on things people may have mentioned. One is, I know you cannot comment on the case of Ms. Meng, because it is a legal case, but specifically on the impact. For yourself and other senior executives, what’s the impact? Are you limiting or changing your travels, or are you avoiding certain countries, for example? What about the impact on Huawei employee morale?

The other is about the US’s potential moves. Because we started to see some moves by governments or operators in the US and its allies like France, the UK, or even Japan, to block the use of Huawei equipment in their core 5G networks. Are you worried about this trend? Do you think that’s geopolitical issue no matter what you say or do?

Ken Hu: On your first question: There is no impact on our travel plans. Yesterday, I was still on the plane, at this point in time.

Regarding the second question, the latest developments on 5G in different countries. I just came back from Europe yesterday. I want to share with you some of my observations.

Before that I would like to correct you a little bit. There is no official decision from either France or Japan saying they would ban Huawei from 5G. What we are seeing right now, instead, is that more and more governments and operators in more and more countries are engaged in very proactive discussions with Huawei with 5G.

As I mentioned earlier at the very beginning, Huawei has been awarded 25 commercial contracts on 5G. That number is bigger than that of any competitor in the industry. At the same time, we are in a significantly leading position on 5G no matter when we look at the leadership or maturity of our technologies.

You visited some of our labs this morning and I believe you must have seen many cool technologies there.

Those are the cool technologies that only Huawei enjoys in our industry. It is because of those technologies that we have been able to build the strong leadership position on 5G that we enjoy today. We have participated in dozens of pre-commercial tests on 5G. From the testing results, Huawei is at least 12 to 18 months ahead from a technical maturity point of view compared to other peers in our industry.

This leadership of Huawei has been publically acknowledged by our customers. For example, last month at the Mobile Broadband Forum held in London, the chief architect of British Telecom publicly commented that Huawei is the only true 5G supplier right now and others need to catch up.

This significant recognition we have from customers and governments is first attributed to our technological leadership on 5G.

Those governments and those customers believe using the best supplier for 5G network deployment would help substantially shorten the time-to-market of this new technology. For example, LG U+ in Korea. They have already launched their 5G services after deploying 5G networks with Huawei equipment.

This could help them to enjoy a more competitive cost structure and bring compelling services to consumers. At the same time, we also see concerns of various natures of different countries on 5G. For those concerns, we think most of those are very legitimate concerns that are based on technology. Those are the concerns that we believe could be well clarified and mitigated through our collaboration with telecom operators and through joint engagement and communication with governments. Of course, there are also rare cases, where countries take – what we would say – an unnatural approach.

They turn this 5G security concern, which is industry- and technology-related in nature, into groundless speculations targeting specific companies. This is not putting the focus on how to improve and how to protect the technology itself, but ending up with speculations targeting particular companies out of ideological or geopolitical considerations.

In very rare cases, certain countries, when it comes to 5G technology selection, took an irresponsible approach, which is not at all based on facts, banning certain companies from market participation.

We think decisions like this should be very serious and very professional. There must be evidence or proof to support these decisions. If there is no evidence, I think any decision of this nature would not win the test of time. We believe discussions around 5G security should return to technology discussions and should be based on objective assessment of companies.

We think security is first a technology topic. And it is also something that the whole industry needs to come together to address. It should not target specific companies for no substantial ground.

Security concerns can only be addressed through technical discussions. Security discussions need to involve all stakeholders. On 5G technology selection, we think any government decision should be serious and professional and what’s very important is that there must be proof and evidence.

If you have proof and evidence, it should be made public, maybe not to the general public, not to Huawei. But at the very least, it should be made known to telecom operators, because it’s telecom operators who are going to buy from Huawei.

We think for our industry and for society at large, security challenges will be real for a long time. And these can only be addressed and mitigated through open communication and collaboration. And Huawei is committed to be a part of this process.

Rejecting one particular company, especially leading companies, cannot fundamentally address concerns on cyber security. At the same time, it would increase the cost of network deployment; it would delay the adoption of new technologies. And in the end, it would be the consumers who have to pay the heavier bill.

Take Australia for example, we have some numbers around it. Without Huawei’s participation, the cost for deploying wireless base stations in Australia would be higher by 15% to 40%. And the cost of building up an entire network would be higher by several billion Australian dollars. Even worse, the time for people to adopt and use 5G technology would be delayed.

Shunsuke Tabeta, Nikkei: You talked about the Security Transparency Center as an upcoming initiative taken in Europe. Do you have similar measures in Japan, or Asia, or Australia on security?

Ken Hu: On security, we are very willing to take proactive measures to address and mitigate concerns. This is our principle. Under this principle, we stay open to have proactive dialogue with governments around the world, to understand their concerns and to explore all possible solutions.

We have already had many successful cases in countries like the UK, Canada, Germany and France. And definitely the APEC region is not an exception. We’ve also proactively communicated with regulators in those countries. We’ll be looking at their needs and requirements and explore the right solutions to address those recent requirements.

Joe McDonald, AP: Some people suggest that governments such as the US that say Huawei is a security risk really aren’t concerned about security but about trade and are trying to stop Huawei from becoming a competitor with American technology companies. First I want to ask, do you think that’s the case, that governments are creating this as a competitive issue to stop Huawei?

Second how much do you think this might hurt Huawei’s business?

How do you feel about being labelled a security risk?

What do you want to see changes in trade between China and the United States or China and other countries to help you?

Ken Hu: First, labelling Huawei as a security risk. Our opinion is that any conclusion, any speculation should be based on real evidence.

Either you have evidence to show that Huawei’s solution or Huawei’s equipment is not secure.

Over the past 30 years, hundreds of telecom operators have used Huawei’s equipment. There has been no major cybersecurity incidents. And there has been almost zero Huawei equipment being used in the United States, so what is the evidence here to say that Huawei is not secure?

Or either you say there are problems with Huawei’s behavior, yet again, over the past 30 years we have become a $100-billion-dollar company with business in 170 countries. There’s no evidence to show Huawei has problems with our behavior.

So the question I want to ask is for a company with a 100 billion dollars in revenue, with businesses in 170 countries, with the fact that we’ve provided leading products to most telecom operators around the world, we serve hundreds of Fortune 500 companies, we also serve hundreds of millions of consumers around the world – you say Huawei is a cybersecurity risk without any proof. On what grounds?

You also talked about competition.

If you look at advancement in human society from a technology and innovation point of view, a very big driver is the benign competition between different industries and between different companies.

With absence of competition consumers cannot enjoy better technologies in a shorter period of time.

We also believe leadership can only be gained through competition.

Locking competitors out of the field cannot make yourself more excellent.

Therefore we believe any concern, any allegation or suspicion on security about Huawei, should be based on factual evidence. Without factual evidence we don’t accept and we oppose those allegations.

For 5G technology that is about to be deployed, Huawei has the strongest leadership position in this area.

Leading companies need to be respected and encouraged. Because we bring benign competition and drive the healthy development of the industry. And in the end the entire society will benefit.

Dan Strumpf, Wall Street Journal: As you know much of the recent efforts against Huawei over the last year in many western ally countries around the world have been led by the United States and by the United States security establishment and it has been well-reported this is a coordinated effort. It’s been the 6 years since the American government first raised its security concerns about Huawei. And the company finds itself in this position now 6 years later defending itself against the very same allegations. I am just wondering if you believe, if Huawei believes that it could have done anything differently over the last 6 years to communicate its position primarily to the United States but to governments that find it mistrustful, in particular governments that used to welcome Huawei but now find themselves less willing to accept its equipment as 5G rollout begins. Thank you.

Ken Hu: Over the last couple of years, Huawei has taken many measures to engage in proactive communication with governments. On top of communication, we also established cooperation mechanisms on security with many national governments, including the governments of the UK, Canada, Germany, and France. We highly appreciate the open and pragmatic approach those governments have demonstrated in these engagements. And that progress has encouraged Huawei to do even better in those areas. This is the strategy and approach that Huawei will continue to follow.

At the same time, as I mentioned at the very beginning, we realize that as we grow bigger it is also part of our responsibility to proactively communicate and collaborate with the governments around the world. Because naturally, big companies draw more attention and also more concerns. Therefore, as we grow bigger, we will continue to embrace openness and transparency, communicating with all these stakeholders to address and mitigate their concerns.

Tony Chan, Commsday: I have a couple of questions specific to Australia. I just want to know the numbers you’ve quoted about the cost of rolling out base stations and wireless network regarding the cost of rolling that without Huawei that the numbers you gave before. Was that a Huawei study or a third-party research? And the other thing is obviously Huawei continues to engage the Australian government regarding the recent policy of banning Huawei from bidding for 5G. I just want to know if they actually express any detailed requirements for Huawei. Like, is there something that Huawei can do to actually qualify? Or is it just a blanket ban without particular details, technical details.

Ken Hu: On the first question, the numbers that I shared with you earlier came from a third-party report. The name of the company is Frontier Economics. The title of that report is The Value of Competition on 5G Network Deployment. If you are interested, we can provide this report to all of you.

And then to your second question. It’s a pity that we haven ’t got any clear message from the Australian government, saying what exactly the problem is, and what is the evidence for them to come to their conclusion. And we did not have the opportunity to clarify this doubt with the Australian government.

Clay Chandler, Fortune: Just a follow-up on Dan’s question. You’ve shown us the wonderful testing and evaluation center here and described how the processes are working for countries like UK. I wonder if in the United States and Australia for example, you see any value in making similar investments to create centers that can show people how these technologies can be verified and demonstrate your security record in a concrete way in particular markets that’s been especially problematic.

Ken Hu: I would say, why not? Because if we look at the cyber security center we built in the UK, it’s for the UK. And we have a similar center in Canada to address their concerns. We have this new security center in Germany to serve the German market. As I mentioned earlier, we should have communications with government to fully understand their concerns. And also take agreed actions to address and mitigate those concerns.

Once people raise concerns about security, if they want to address and resolve the concerns. I would say definitely we will be able to find the right solution.

But for security concerns raised as an excuse to block good companies from market participation, without hoping to truly address these concerns, I would say the results would be very different. Take 5G, for example. If security concerns are raised as an excuse to block market competition, the result would be slower adoption of the new technology, much higher cost of network deployment, and consumers not being able to enjoy good technology, good services in a timely way. And yet, they will still have to pay more for those services.

And from a security point of view, this approach would not help to truly address and resolve the concerns around cybersecurity, given the fact that the ICT value chain is global in nature. If there are concerns saying Huawei’s equipment is made in China, then if you look at all the companies along the value chain of ICT, you can hardly find even one company where they say none of my products or components are produced in China.

We would urge all players to get rid of these ideological or geopolitical considerations, and return the discussion to security and to technology. I also call for all players to come together to identify the real risks, and to find the right solutions.

Sijia Jiang, Reuters: I want to ask for more details on the two-billion dollar security overhaul. Can you please give some more information on how exactly you arrive at this number? How you will spend the money in which market, and why now? Is it in response to the July report from CSEC that you decided to address some of the UK concerns? But some of the issues had actually been raised as early as 2015. So why does this take so long for you to take any action, and why now?

Ken Hu: The two-billion dollar five-year program on software engineering improvement is part of Huawei’s IPD transformation. This year, the company decided to start what we call IPD 2.0 program. IPD refers to “integrated product development.” This software engineering improvement program is part of that overall effort.

More than 10 years ago, we started this transformation process by introducing integrated product development for technology and innovation. That’s what we call IPD 1.0. And through our efforts over the last 10+ years, and with the support of these restructured processes, we are able to deliver reliable, high quality and innovative products.

Then we started IPD 2.0 with a renewed understanding about future technology evolution, future networking environments, and what customers and society expect from technology at large. From a technical point of view, as we say it, the future technical landscape will become more complicated. From a network point of view, the future network environment will be more open, connecting not just people but also things. From a social point of view, digital technology will become increasingly important and an integral part of people’s lives, having implications for everyone in the way they work and live. Naturally, as a result of this, what people expect from technology is not just technical leadership and quality. Security will become a basic demand and requirement.

We foresee in the not long future down the road, the trustworthiness and security of technology will become the most fundamental and basic requirement for any given technology.

That’s how we envision the future, then we will start from there and work backwards. The trustworthiness of a technology or a product can not entirely rely on testing efforts at the very end of development processes; rather, it has to start from the early design phase. As people often say, a good product is not made through testing but through design and development.

Similarly, we believe trustworthy and secure products of the future will firstly rely on design. As a part of the IPD 2.0 transformation, the trustworthiness and security of the products is a very important objective that we will be working on. At the same time, we think software will be more and more important in future products. Therefore, software engineering will play a more important role to ensure the trustworthiness and security of future products.

You are right when you talked about the July report from the Oversight Board of the UK. While they acknowledged the track records of Huawei’s products from a security point of view, they also reminded us that Huawei needs to improve its software engineering capabilities and practices.

This is help from the UK government and we feel very appreciative about it. Therefore, as part of the overall IPD 2.0 transformation, we include software engineering capabilities as a very important component. In terms of how we arrived at this number [US$2 billion], it is based on our technology mix and also based on our own cost estimations.

In the recent several months, we have been looking at this software engineering improvement as part of our overall IPD 2.0 transformation and we are working on our implementation plans for the future. We are quite confident about this transformation.

Huawei is a big company. It’s not that easy for us to make a decision, especially a big decision. But whenever we’ve made a decision, Huawei has never failed. We are committed to see to it that we deliver the results on the things that we have decided to do. More importantly, we think this transformation and also all these improvement efforts are important for us to remain confident for our longer-term future and also to maintain the confidence of governments, customers, and partners around the world on Huawei.

Sijia Jiang, Reuters: Whether Huawei would recruit new people or open new labs?

Ken Hu: This investment will cover a lot of areas, including organization and people. For example, we will bring on board more people, especially talented people in software security. We will also improve our facilities at the labs. We will also revisit and improve our processes. At the same time, as part of this effort, we also need to change the mindsets of tens of thousands of our R&D engineers, so that they know security and trustworthiness is part of the important commitment we make to our customers.

Edwin Chan, Bloomberg: I think my colleague has asked this already, but I’m gonna ask a lot more specifically. So we know a lot of carriers are considering or have already decided to rip out Huawei equipment or steer clear of Huawei equipment for 5G. So, specifically, is Huawei confident of sustaining its growth? I know you said your revenue is gonna surpass 100 billion US dollars this year. But are you confident in maintaining your growth rate given the actions that I just described? And, then also, just more philosophically, I think you would agree that Huawei is at a very critical juncture in its history. You know, you are just on the cusp of becoming a 5G power. And then this happened. So, I understand that in some ways it’s a technical issue. There are also many who would argue that Huawei is already technologically superior in 5G. But I think the greater concern is more a motivational issue or an issue of your independence. How do you address that?

Ken Hu: We are not seeing as pessimistic a picture as was described just now. We didn’t see operators saying they want to swap out Huawei equipment or they want to stay clear from Huawei. On the contrary, out of the hundreds of operators we work with in the world, almost all of them are saying they want to work with Huawei, using Huawei equipment for their 5G networks, because they know we are the best. Only by using the best equipment can they build up their 5G networks faster and can they build up their 5G networks in a more cost-competitive way.

It’s like a race. There are several runners on the field and now we are in the leading position. And I think leading runners should have every reason to be confident about the future. And we are confident that we will be the first one to hit the line.

And you also talked about independence. And I think the most convincing way is to let the facts speak. And over the last 30 years we have been providing services to telecommunications industry and our track records in all different aspects have proven our independence.

I think it’s not necessary to always dwell on fear or speculations without any facts. Having said that, it definitely does not mean we don’t value other voices or concerns around Huawei’s openness, transparency, and independence.

Therefore in the past and in the future we will continue to adopt a transparent approach in proactively communicating with all stakeholders on all of their legitimate concerns, by providing more information that they need.

Yang Yuan, Financial Times: You mentioned there were geopolitical concerns rather than real technical concerns. Underlying some governments’ concerns of 5G safety in Huawei, you mentioned this in the context of the US. But do you think the same geopolitical concerns are also motivating countries, Japan, or more recently the Czech Republic, or even BT in its vision strip Huawei equipment out of its core network? Would you say these countries are also being politically influenced perhaps by US political concerns? Or do you think those countries concerns are coming from genuine technical concerns? And to ask a more specific question on that point, the UK’s oversight board, the FCC we just discussed concluded in July that Huawei’s safety standards were below industry standards. Do you think this was a technical finding or do you think it was motivated by politics as well? And it was a technical finding then why were you not prepared for it?

Ken Hu: Let me first respond on the BT issue. We are working with BT for over 10 years. We are very good partners to each other. We have provided a large number of equipment, both fixed line and wireless to BT.

From the very beginning of the Huawei-BT collaboration we had very thorough discussions around the whole strategy before network deployment and specifically where to introduce Huawei equipment into BT’s networks.

Regarding 5G technology, BT fully recognized Huawei’s leadership as exemplified by the chief architect’s remarks, that Huawei is the only one, the only true 5G supplier now in the market. Therefore it is definitely not the case that BT out of technical pressure decides to swap out Huawei’s core equipment.

All of our collaboration with BT will follow this pre-agreed network deployment strategy, between Huawei and BT.

This year’s OB report included the areas where Huawei needs to improve on the technical capability side. We attached great importance to this, and value the viewpoints and perspectives in this report.

On the one hand we have very active discussions with UK operators and also regulators to study and explore our action plans to improve based on those findings.

At the same time, we have also started our internal actions. And I would say over the last couple of months and less than half a year, the progress across all different dimensions has been quite encouraging.

Eunice Yoon, CNBC: President Trump has shown that he enjoys engaging directly with executives and we have seen that with Jack Ma, for example. Have you considered or any executive at Huawei, visiting the White House? Or if invited would you consider going?

Ken Hu: We have not received such invitation yet and we don’t have such plans.

Closing remark

Ken Hu: Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you very much for this long interview and conversation, which is very helpful for me to understand different perspectives from the media community. And now I would like to do a quick summary before we end this session.

So as we discussed today, over the past 30 years, we believe it is the hard work and dedication of every Huawei staff that has made today’s Huawei. And we also appreciate the trust and support from our customers, from our partners, and also from many, many governments around the word.

I joined Huawei in 1990, almost 30 years ago, so I have had the honor to witness almost the whole process. From my perspective, over the past 30 years, this journey of transformation for Huawei across many, many aspects – in terms of culture, in terms of the management of our people. This is journey of transformation that has helped us grow up from an unknown vendor to the 5G leader. And actually today, our 5G product solutions are in the leading position ahead of our industry peers.

So we appreciate the recognition from society. We appreciate the dedication from our employees. And we believe that industry leaders should be respected, because we bring healthy competition and we enable the development of technology and our society. As we discussed today, upcoming 5G technology will create huge opportunities and benefits for society. It will tremendously change many people’s lives and the future of many industries, and we believe it highly relies on a global supply chain.

Talking about the security, in the past 30 years we have also witnessed the proven track record of Huawei’s product security. There isn’t any evidence that Huawei poses a threat to national security to any country. We will always welcome any open dialogue with anyone who has legitimate concerns. But for any ungrounded allegations, we will firmly defend ourselves, and we won’t allow our reputation to be tarnished.

At last, I’d like to share a saying from Romain Rolland. “There is only one heroism in the world: to see the world as it is, and to love it.” At Huawei, we see what we have encountered and we still love the work we are doing. Similarly, in Chinese, we have a saying.

“道阻且长，行且将至.” It means that the road ahead is long and hard, but we will keep moving and reach the destination, because we have already embarked on this journey. So once again, thank you very much for your time with us today. I really appreciate the wonderful conversation with all of you guys. And at last I would like to wish all of you an early Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Thank you.

Dear Senator Hatch and Speaker Ryan:

On behalf of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, we are pleased to transmit the Commission’s 2018 Annual Report to Congress. This Report responds to our mandate “to monitor, investigate, and report to Congress on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).” The Commission reached a broad and bipartisan consensus on the contents of this Report, with all 11 members (one appointment remains vacant) voting unanimously to approve and submit it to Congress.

In accordance with our mandate, this Report, which is current as of October 9, includes the results and recommendations of our hearings, research, travel, and review of the areas identified by Congress in our mandate, as defined in Public Law No. 106–398 (October 30, 2000), and amended by Public Laws No. 107–67 (November 12, 2001), No. 108–7 (February 20, 2003), No. 109–108 (November 22, 2005), No. 110–161 (December 26, 2007), and No. 113–291 (December 19, 2014).

The Commission’s charter, which includes the 11 directed research areas of our mandate, is included as Appendix I of the Report. The Commission conducted six public hearings and one public roundtable, taking testimony from 56 expert witnesses from government, the private sector, academia, think tanks, research institutions, and other backgrounds. For each of these hearings, the Commission produced a transcript (posted on our website at http://www.uscc.gov). This year’s hearings and roundtable included:

• China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Five Years Later;
• China’s Military Reforms and Modernization: Implications for the United States;
• China, the United States, and Next Generation Connectivity;
• China’s Relations with U.S. Allies and Partners in Europe and the Asia Pacific;
• China’s Role in North Korea Contingencies;
• China’s Agricultural Policies: Trade, Investment, Safety, and Innovation; and
• U.S. Tools to Address Chinese Market Distortions.

The Commission received a number of briefings by executive branch agencies and the Intelligence Community, including both unclassified and classified briefings on China’s military modernization, China’s defense and security activities in the Indo-Pacific, China’s relations with Northeast Asia, China’s cyber activities, Chinese threats to the Department of Defense’s supply chain, China’s focus on megaprojects, U.S. critical telecommunications infrastructure, and money laundering. The Commission is preparing a classified report to Congress on these and other topics. The Commission also received briefings by foreign diplomatic and military officials as well as U.S. and foreign nongovernmental experts.

Commissioners made official visits to Taiwan and Japan to hear and discuss perspectives on China and its global and regional activities. In these visits, the Commission delegation met with U.S. diplomats, host government officials, business representatives, academics, journalists, and other experts. Since its establishment, the Commission has had productive visits to China. Recently, the PRC government has been unable to support these visits, which affects the Commission’s ability to fully assess issues in country.

The Commission also relied substantially on the work of our excellent professional staff and supported outside research (see Appendix IV) in accordance with our mandate (see Appendix I).
iv 2018 REPORT TO CONGRESS OF THE U.S.-CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION

The Report includes 26 recommendations for congressional action, which appear at the conclusion of the Executive Summary.

We offer this Report to Congress in the hope that it will be useful for assessing progress and challenges in U.S.-China relations.
Thank you for the opportunity to serve. We look forward to continuing to work with Members of Congress in the
upcoming year to address issues of concern in the U.S.-China relationship

Mountain View, CA – December 18, 2018… BMW i Ventures has announced a strategic investment in Graphcore, a company developing a new kind of computer processor and software specifically designed for machine intelligence.

Since the company’s founding only two years ago, Graphcore has helped innovators create next-generation machine intelligence solutions. Graphcore’s Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU) is the first processor to be designed specifically for Machine Intelligence and delivers higher speeds compared to conventional hardware.

“The versatility of Graphcore’s IPU – which supports multiple machine learning techniques with high efficiency – is well-suited for a wide variety of applications from intelligent voice assistants to self-driving vehicles,” said Tobias Jahn, Principal at
BMW i Ventures. “With the flexibility to use the same processor in both a data center and a vehicle, Graphcore’s IPU also presents the possibility of reductions in development times and complexity.”

The investment from BMW i Ventures is a further step towards fulfilling the company’s ambition to build a global technology company, focused on this new and fast-growing machine intelligence market.

# # #
About BMW i Ventures
BMW i Ventures, BMW’s EUR 500 million venture capital fund, invests money and resources in startups in the fields of autonomous driving, digital car and automotive cloud, e-mobility, artificial Intelligence and data, industry 4.0, shared and on-demand mobility, customer digital life, and energy services. The firm has already partnered with innovative companies such as Carbon3D, Chargepoint, Claroty, DesktopMetal, fair, Graphcore, Lime, Mapillary, Moovit, Nauto, and Xometry. BMW i Ventures invests in all stages from seed to growth companies.

About Graphcore
Graphcore’s Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU) hardware and software lets innovators create next generation machine intelligence solutions. The IPU is the first processor to be designed specifically for Machine Intelligence and delivers between 10x to 100x speed up compared to today’s hardware. Graphcore has raised over $300m in funding from leading financial and strategic investors and is headquartered in Bristol UK, with offices in London UK, Oslo Norway, Palo Alto USA and Beijing China.
More information can be found at https://www.graphcore.ai.

Mountain View, CA – BMW i Ventures announced today a strategic investment in Claroty, the leading developer of cybersecurity software for protecting the safety and reliability of industrial control networks.

Headquartered in New York, Claroty was founded in 2014 by CEO Amir Zilberstein, Chief Business Development Officer Galina Antova, and CTO Benny Porat. Specializing in cybersecurity for industrial and critical infrastructure environments, the company provides an integrated platform of solutions which provide deep visibility into industrial control systems (ICS), combining continuous monitoring for threats and vulnerabilities with secure remote access and consequently enabling ICS operators to protect these mission-critical networks.

“Our investment in Claroty is a clear signal that we are taking the need for industrial cybersecurity very seriously and recognize the tremendous growth potential in the sector” said Tobias Jahn, Principal at BMW i Ventures. “Claroty’s unmatched team, technical superiority, and strategic partnerships with multiple large automation vendors like Rockwell Automation, Siemens and Schneider Electric, convinced us they have the capability for rapid growth and to maintain the leadership position within this segment far into the future.”

The growing threat of advanced cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure and industrial control systems presents a unique challenge. More and more factories utilize connected devices, following IoT and Industry 4.0 developments, which expose these industrial networks to malware and an increasingly hostile threat landscape. BMW i Ventures continues to make investments protecting the safety and resiliency of manufacturing operations and the security of the world-class automobiles.

Claroty will use the investment to expand its sales and customer support footprint globally, increase awareness and demand for the Claroty brand, and continue its rapid pace of product innovation.
# # #

About BMW i Ventures
BMW i Ventures, BMW’s EUR 500 Mio million venture capital fund, invests money and resources in startups in the fields of autonomous driving, digital car and automotive cloud, e-mobility, artificial Intelligence and data, industry 4.0, shared and on-demand mobility, customer digital life, and energy services. The firm has already partnered with innovative companies such as Carbon3D, Chargepoint, DesktopMetal, JustPark, Life360, Moovit, Nauto, Scoop, Stratim, Turo, Xometry and Zendrive. BMW i Ventures invests in all stages from seed and incubation to growth companies.

About Claroty
Headquartered in New York and launched as the second startup from the famed Team8 foundry, Claroty combines elite management and research teams with deep technical expertise from both IT and OT disciplines. The company is backed by an unrivaled syndicate of investors and partners, including some of the most important industrial control automation companies and asset owners on earth. With an unmatched understanding of ICS, SCADA, and other essential OT/IIoT systems, Claroty built a fully integrated cybersecurity platform. Our award-winning suite of products provides extreme visibility into industrial networks – enabling unparalleled cyberthreat protection, detection, and response. For more information, visit www.claroty.com.

SEATTLE– Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced it will open an infrastructure region in South Africa in the first half of 2020. The new AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region will consist of three Availability Zones. Currently, AWS provides 55 Availability Zones across 19 infrastructure regions worldwide, with another 12 Availability Zones across four AWS Regions in Bahrain, Hong Kong SAR, Sweden, and a second GovCloud Region in the U.S. expected to come online in the coming months. For more information on AWS’s global infrastructure, go to: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/.

“Having built the original version of Amazon EC2 in our Cape Town development center 14 years ago, and with thousands of African companies using AWS for years, we’ve been able to witness first-hand the technical talent and potential in Africa,” said Andy Jassy, CEO, Amazon Web Services, Inc. “Technology has the opportunity to transform lives and economies across Africa and we’re excited about AWS and the Cloud being a meaningful part of that transformation.”

The new region is the latest in a series of AWS investments in South Africa. In 2004, Amazon opened a development center in Cape Town that focuses on building pioneering networking technologies, next generation software for customer support, and the technology behind Amazon EC2. AWS has also built a number of local teams including account managers, customer services representatives, partner managers, solutions architects, and more to help customers of all sizes as they move to the cloud. In 2015, AWS opened an office in Johannesburg, and in 2017 brought the Amazon Global Network to Africa through AWS Direct Connect. In May of 2018, AWS continued its investment in South Africa, launching infrastructure points of presence in Cape Town and Johannesburg, bringing Amazon CloudFront, Amazon Route 53, AWS Shield, and AWS WAF to the continent and adding to the 138 points of presence AWS has around the world.

The addition of the AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region will enable organizations to provide lower latency to end users across Sub-Saharan Africa and will enable more African organizations to leverage advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Internet of Things (IoT), mobile services, and more to drive innovation. Local AWS customers will also be able to store their data in South Africa with the assurance that their content will not move without consent, while those looking to comply with the upcoming Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) will have access to secure infrastructure that meets the most rigorous international compliance standards.

African organizations already moving to AWS

Organizations across the African continent have been increasingly moving their applications to AWS. Enterprises such as Absa, Investec, MedScheme, MiX Telematics, Old Mutual, Pick n Pay, Standard Bank, Travelstart, and many more are using AWS to drive cost savings, accelerate innovation, and speed up time-to-market. African startups choosing AWS as the foundation for their businesses include Aerobotics, Apex Innovation, Asoriba, BusinessOptics, ColonyHQ, Custos Media, DPO PayGate, EMS Invirotel, Entersekt, graylink, HealthQ, JourneyApps, JUMO, Luno, Mukuru, NicheStreem, Parcelninja, Simfy Africa, Zanibal, Zapper, and Zoona. The African Public Sector, including researchers, museums, and health sciences organizations, are also choosing AWS. For example, The National Museums of Kenya (NMK), is using AWS to digitize their most precious and valuable artifacts, which make up one of the largest collections of archaeology and paleontology in the world.

Absa, one of the largest and most innovative banks in Africa, welcomes the news of an AWS Region. “AWS has been Absa’s primary cloud provider for the past three years. The reduction in latencies that will accompany their expansion to South Africa will further enable us to scale our cloud consumption,” said Andy Baker, CIO at Absa. “We no longer deploy bespoke hardware, SAN storage, or high-cost proprietary database solutions. Instead, our new tech stack utilizes low cost, fully automated, logically partitioned, open source software, with real-time security and application monitoring. AWS’s track record of delivering enterprise ready and South African regulator-approved services to Absa has given us confidence to deploy services aimed at further reducing our operational costs and improving our cyber risk profile.”

Another well-known South African enterprise using AWS for their mission critical workloads is MiX Telematics, a global provider of fleet management, driver safety, and vehicle tracking services and solutions. “We started working with AWS in 2015 and decided to go ‘all-in,’ including migrating our full fleet and mobile asset management stack to AWS and shutting down our on-premises data centers over a period of 18 months,” said Catherine Lewis, Executive VP (Technology) at MiX Telematics. “Through moving to AWS, we have been able to speed up innovation and increase system reliability, while reducing the time to get new ideas into production from months to minutes. While we already use AWS globally in Ireland, Australia, and the U.S., an AWS infrastructure region in Africa will accelerate our innovation even further, improve our service, and ultimately reduce the costs of supporting our base of over 700,000 vehicles. We are also in the process of migrating over 7,000 costly Microsoft SQL Server databases to Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS PostgreSQL, and adopting new technologies, such as AWS’s Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning services, to help more intelligently manage vehicle efficiency, improve driver safety, and ultimately enable us to drive greater value for our customers.”

Pick n Pay is one of the largest retailers in Africa, with over 80,000 staff across 1,560 stores, and is moving their eCommerce and data analytics systems to AWS. “By moving our eCommerce and mobile customer application to AWS, from our previous managed services model, we estimate we have saved significantly on our total cost of ownership over the past year,” said Chris Shortt, General Manager of Information Services, Pick n Pay. “The relationship, performance, reliability, and cost savings has been positive and has led us to move our SAP Business Warehouse systems to certified AWS X1 instances. Selecting AWS highlights the differentiated, cloud-first thinking they bring to us as opposed to more traditional, and less agile, service providers. The scale, security, speed, and customer focused nature of AWS is something we’ve become accustomed to and look forward to expanding our use of their services as the South African Region becomes a reality.”

In the startup space, Entersekt, an authentication and mobile application security company, is leveraging the scalability of AWS to support world-renowned financial services organizations including Absa, Capitec Bank, Nedbank, Swisscard, and more. The company is using AWS to send fully encrypted data from their banking customer’s on-premises environments to the cloud. This high level of security helps Entersekt’s customers across 45 countries to secure over 150 million transactions per month, drastically reducing online and mobile banking and payment fraud rates. “As a South African headquartered company and long-term customer, we are proud to be among the first to welcome the news of an AWS Region,” said Schalk Nolte, CEO of Entersekt. “Our customers are large financial institutions for whom even minutes of downtime are unacceptable. They experience significant spikes in transaction volumes during the course of a month and AWS provides the elasticity and availability they demand, without having to build, operate, and protect a system of this kind themselves. AWS has ensured extremely high service levels even as transactions continue to double every six months. An AWS infrastructure region in South Africa is great news as it will give us the opportunity to continue this rapid growth and offer South African financial institutes localised data control and protection with increased system performance and reduced latency.”

Another startup using AWS to speed up their work is South African-based Hyrax Biosciences. Originating from the South African National Bioinformatics Institute at the University of the Western Cape, Hyrax Biosciences has developed a technology on AWS called Exatype that rapidly and accurately tests HIV and tuberculosis drug resistance. “When we were developing Exatype, we naturally turned to AWS because it allows us to provide patients with secure, timely, and reliable results. We knew that with the ability to quickly scale up our technology on AWS, our solution had the potential to influence the lives of millions of people,” said Professor Simon Travers, Co-Founder and CEO of Hyrax Biosciences. “Currently 10 percent of patients on HIV antiretroviral treatment do not respond to the drugs provided to them because of drug resistance. The Exatype system solves this problem by showing clinicians which drugs would be most effective for each individual patient in order to increase their response and improve treatment. Traditionally, it can cost as much as $300 to $500 to do a single resistance test. Now, thanks to AWS, Exatype can do this at a fraction of the cost. HIV still affects millions of people, so knowing an AWS Region is coming to South Africa is great news as it will help us to speed up research and take us a step nearer to ensuring all HIV positive people get the standard of care they need.”

AWS also has a vibrant ecosystem in South Africa, including AWS Partner Network (APN) Partners that have built cloud practices and innovative technology solutions on AWS. APN Consulting and Technology Partners in South Africa helping customers to migrate to the cloud include Autumn Leaf, BBD, Dimension Data, EOH, First Distribution, Silicon Overdrive, Servol Software, Symbiotics, Synthesis Software Technologies, and others. For the full list of AWS Partner Network members, please visit: https://aws.amazon.com/partners/.

AWS supports South African development

As well as supporting existing customers, AWS is also investing in the future of the South African technology community, taking part in a number of philanthropic and charity activities. Amazon supports organizations such as AfricaTeenGeeks, an NGO that teaches children to code, Code4CT, a charity set up to inspire and empower young girls by equipping them with technical skills, DjangoGirls, which introduces women to coding, and GirlCode, which supports the empowerment of women through technology. Amazon engineers work with these and other charities to provide coaching, mentoring, and AWS credits. Amazon also supports Africa-focused non-profit organization World Reader by donating cloud technology and Kindle devices, filled with e-books, to tackle illiteracy in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a result of the support from Amazon, World Reader has deployed over 27,000 Kindles to 396 schools and 109 libraries across 16 African countries.

In the education space, AWS supports the Explore Data Science Academy to educate students on data analytics skills in order to produce the next generation of data scientists in Africa. AWS is also working with education institutions in South Africa, such as the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University, to help train the next generation of cloud professionals through AWS Educate. Another program for higher education institutes is AWS Academy, which provides AWS-authorized courses for students to acquire in-demand cloud computing skills. The program has already attracted the country’s major academic institutions, including the University of Cape Town, University of Johannesburg, and Durban University of Technology.

To help grow the next generation of African businesses, AWS works with the venture capital community as well as accelerators and incubators in South Africa to provide resources to startups through programs such as AWS Activate. In Cape Town, AWS works with organizations such as 4Di Capital, AngelHub Ventures, Crossfin, Knife Capital, LaunchLab, MTN Solution Space, Mzansi Commons, and Silicon Cape as well as co-working hubs, such as Workshop17, to provide coaching and mentorship as well as technical support and resources to help African startups launch their businesses and go global.

To sign up for an AWS account to prepare for the arrival of the AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region, visit aws.amazon.com.

About Amazon Web Services
For over 12 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. AWS offers over 125 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 55 Availability Zones (AZs) within 18 geographic regions and one Local Region around the world, spanning the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the UK. AWS services are trusted by millions of active customers around the world—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—to power their infrastructure, make them more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com.

About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.

San Francisco, California — Apple and Salesforce today announced a strategic partnership that brings together the number one customer relationship management platform and iOS, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, enabling powerful new mobile apps for business. Working with Apple, Salesforce is redesigning its app to embrace the native mobile platform with exclusive new features on iOS. The companies will also provide tools and resources for millions of Salesforce developers to build their own native apps with a new Salesforce Mobile SDK for iOS, and a new iOS app development course on Trailhead, Salesforce’s free, web-based learning platform.
“We’re excited to work with Salesforce and that their industry-leading CRM will embrace native iOS and deliver exclusive new features on iPhone and iPad,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “With the powerful combination of iPhone, iPad and iOS — the best hardware and software for business — together with native Salesforce apps and the new Salesforce SDK, we can deliver great customer experiences for businesses around the world.”
“With this partnership, we’re bringing together the world’s number one CRM platform with iPhone and iPad, the world’s best devices for business,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and co-CEO, Salesforce. “Together, Salesforce and Apple are defining a new era of mobile innovation with native apps on iOS, and empowering millions of people with access to Trailhead and the skills they need for the jobs of the future.”

The redesigned Salesforce Mobile App will take full advantage of native iOS features like Face ID, Siri Shortcuts, 3D Touch and more. Salesforce has also applied Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines to deliver an optimal experience for users.
The initial focus areas of this strategic partnership include:
Native Salesforce iOS apps for business: Salesforce, working with Apple, will redesign the Salesforce Mobile App to give customers rich experiences exclusively on iOS, with unique Apple capabilities such as Siri Shortcuts, Face ID, Business Chat and more. Salesforce will also introduce the first ever Trailhead Mobile App, first on iOS. The partners will also deliver powerful iOS apps for industries and small business that will serve their specific customer needs.
Empowering Salesforce developers on iOS: Apple and Salesforce are developing the first Salesforce Mobile SDK that is optimized for Swift, Apple’s powerful and intuitive modern programming language. The native SDK will enable businesses and developers to build and deploy apps for iPhone and iPad on the Salesforce Lightning Platform, adding to the hundreds of thousands of iOS apps for business in the App Store today.
Accelerating developer learning and career growth: Apple and Salesforce believe strongly in the democratization of technology and empowering developers — with any education level or background — to learn skills for the jobs of today and tomorrow. To support developer learning and career growth, Apple is launching a new Get Started with iOS App Development Trail that will teach anyone how to build native iOS apps in Xcode with Swift.
Attendees of Dreamforce 2018 can get an early look at the new Apple and Salesforce offerings in the Salesforce Campground (Moscone South Halls ABC) or the Trailhead Area (Moscone West Level 1). For more about the partnership, please visit salesforce.com/apple or apple.com/business/partners.

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.
Salesforce, the global CRM leader, empowers companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way. For more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit: www.salesforce.com.

BROOKLYN, NY – URBAN-X, the leading accelerator for startups reimagining city life, founded by MINI and in partnership with Urban Us, graduated its fourth cohort of startup companies today, hosting an event for seven startups to showcase new hardware, software and IoT platforms to potential investors, customers and public-sector leaders.

The startups in the URBAN-X Cohort 04 are working on solutions to some of the biggest problems cities face around the world, such as optimizing building construction, making residential real estate rentals more transparent, improving personal mobility and road safety, fast, cheap road tolls, and cutting energy waste in commercial office buildings. The Demo Day event kicked off a series of investor meetings the startups will have with top venture capitalists in New York, San Francisco and Palo Alto.

Leading venture investors, public officials, entrepreneurs, and corporate leaders interacted with everyday citizens of New York, listening to presentations and participating in live demonstrations from each of the startups who showcased their market-ready prototypes to an in-person audience of more than 250 and thousands online through a livestream in partnership with Futurism.

“We’re thrilled to work with these innovative entrepreneurs who are pushing the boundaries of what technology can do for our cities,” said Head of MINI Brand Strategy and Business Innovation Esther Bahne. “The MINI brand’s investment in URBAN-X provides a platform to collaborate with some of the brightest minds and creative urban thinkers around the world, who are helping to shape the future of our cities.”

Today’s event was an opportunity for Cohort 04 startups not only to demonstrate the product developments made during URBAN-X’s 20-week accelerator program, but also to seek additional investment to grow their companies.

“Cohort 04 is a group of incredibly creative, inventive and driven entrepreneurs,” said URBAN-X Managing Director, Micah Kotch. “Improving the way our cities work has always required new thinking, and we’re excited about what comes next for these teams.”

URBAN-X has a proven track record in helping early-stage companies secure funding from leading investors. Six of the seven companies in the URBAN-X Cohort 03 are raising their next round of capital. One of those startups, Lunewave, which develops high-performance sensors for fully autonomous vehicles, recently announced a $5 million investment from a group that includes BMW iVentures. This represents the first URBAN-X startup to work with the BMW Startup Garage program and receive investment from the German automaker’s venture capital arm.

Blueprint Power, another Cohort 03 company, which helps large real estate companies transform their urban portfolios into producers of clean, intelligent suppliers of electricity recently closed their $3.5M Series-A financing. Cohort 04 startup Rentlogic, which provides a residential real estate rating system, recently closed a $2.4 million round of seed capital.

“Cohort 04 has already been a great success and today was an exciting milestone for each of these companies,” said Mark Paris, Co-Founder of Urban Us. “We look forward to continue our work with these entrepreneurs, to help them bring their products to market at scale and positively impact city life.”

In the coming weeks, the Cohort 04 startups will meet with potential investors in New York and California. In addition to investments that URBAN-X and Urban Us made as part of the accelerator program, funds and individuals that have invested in URBAN-X portfolio companies include Fred Wilson, Brad Burnham, Edgar Bronfman Jr., BMW iVentures, Draper Associates, Fontinalis Partners, Ekistic Ventures, Wireframe Ventures, Fifth Wall Ventures, Samsung NEXT, Story Ventures, Kairos, and UL Ventures.

The full list of Cohort 04 companies include:
Avvir — Avvir automates quality assurance for the construction industry, providing real-time insights into the progress and potential defects on a project.
Campsyte — Campsyte enables citydwellers to easily find and book private outdoor event space.
ClearRoad — ClearRoad helps government agencies automate toll road pricing for any section of road without the need for traditional proprietary hardware infrastructure.
Open Data Nation — Open Data Nation analyzes billions of public data records for cities and insurance carriers to predict and proactively mitigate problems, such as car crashes as part of the Vision Zero Initiative and prepare for the safe deployment of new technologies such as autonomous vehicles.
Park & Diamond — Park & Diamond makes biking better by reinventing the bike helmet, using next-generation materials to build a safer, more portable helmet that can roll up into the shape of a water bottle for easier carrying, while looking like a regular hat, cap or beanie.
Rentlogic — Rentlogic is a data-driven, letter-grade rating system for apartment buildings that aims to bring transparency and standardization to the residential real estate market.
Sapient Industries — Sapient Industries has developed a smart outlet that senses and learns human behavior patterns in order to automate a building’s energy management.

A live stream of the event will be made available through Futurism and its YouTube page. Click here to join at 10:00 a.m. ET.

URBAN-X Cohort 05 will launch this fall. URBAN-X is also accepting applications for its next class of startups, Cohort 06, launching summer 2019. Early-stage companies interested can apply here until March 15th, 2019

About URBAN-X
URBAN-X is the leading accelerator for technology and design startups reimagining city life. Founded by MINI, URBAN-X helps early-stage companies from all over the world address modern urban challenges across sectors like transport, real estate, local government, food, water, waste and utilities.

Twice a year, URBAN-X selects up to 10 startups for its competitive, five-month program of product and business development. The accelerator invests $100,000 in each startup and puts them to work with a dedicated, in-house team of engineering, design and business experts; involves working trips to Munich, San Francisco and other major cities; and culminates in founders presenting to an audience of investors, thought leaders and media.

URBAN-X has a global reach unparalleled by any other urbantech accelerator and the startups have access to a network of over 2,000 partners around the world, including entrepreneurs, investors and public-sector leaders, who have volunteered to support the founders through the URBAN-X program. During the year, URBAN-X leadership visits cities worldwide — in the U.S., Europe, Asia and beyond — to meet entrepreneurs and individuals shaping the future of urban life.

URBAN-X is based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn at A/D/O, a creative space founded by MINI and dedicated to exploring the boundaries of design. Applications for Cohort 05 are currently open at www.URBAN-X.com. Find URBAN-X on Twitter & Instagram at @urbanxaccel and on Facebook at facebook.com/urbanxaccel.

About MINI in the U.S.
MINI is an independent brand of the BMW Group. In the United States, MINI USA operates as a business unit of BMW of North America, LLC, located in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey and includes the marketing and sales organizations for the MINI brand. The MINI USA sales organization is represented in the U.S. through a network of 128 MINI passenger car dealers in 39 states. MINI USA began selling vehicles in the U.S. in 2002 with the introduction of the MINI Cooper and MINI Cooper S Hardtops. Since then, the MINI Brand in the U.S. has grown to encompass a model range of four unique vehicles.

About Urban Us
Urban Us is the seed stage venture platform for startups re-imagining city life. We believe startups will transform cities as they seek to create opportunity even as they grapple with climate change and growing urban populations.

Urban Us is focused on sectors including built environment, real estate, infrastructure, food, waste, water, public health and safety, energy, govtech, transportation and mobility. Early stage investments are re-imagining sectors like mobility, built environment, local government and utilities. Investments include Architizer, Bowery Farming, BRCK, Kiwi.ki, Mark43, Miles, OneConcern, OneWheel, Rach.io, Revivn, Seamlessdocs, Starcity and Skycatch. With this latest cohort, the Urban Us portfolio will include 44 companies.

The Urban Us team has been doing seed stage investing for more than a decade. We have built our own startups, with a total of four exits. Our team has also managed a venture fund at Citigroup, policy at Roosevelt Institute and research at The Economist. We went to MIT, Harvard & Wharton in engineering, business & policy.

Geneva, Switzerland, 17 September 2018 – Thirty-six brilliant researchers at the cutting edge of discovery are today recognized by the World Economic Forum with the announcement of its Class of 2018 Young Scientists.

The scientists, all under the age of 40, have been selected for their contribution to advancing the frontiers of science in ways that contribute to health, sustainability, inclusiveness and equity. Collectively, their research covers areas as diverse as artificial intelligence, biology and bio-medicine, physics and materials science, and energy and quantum computing.

The Young Scientists will play an important role at the Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions, which is taking place in Tianjin, People’s Republic of China, on 18-20 September. They will participate in sessions and workshops alongside leaders from government, business, civil society and other stakeholder groups and contribute ideas for solving complex challenges within and outside their core areas of interest.

The Class of 2018 Young Scientists are: Enass Abo-Hamed, Shahzada Ahmad, Jill Baumgartner, Fiona Beck, Michael Janus Bojdys, Rona Chandrawati, Vinet Coetzee, Rubén Costa, Ding Ai, Duan Xuexin, Yabebal Fantaye, Tomislav Friscic, Aoife Ann Gowen, Janet Gutierrez-Uribe, Søren Hauberg, He Guojun, Alison Hill, Daniel E. Hurtado, Lamis Jomaa, Pierre Karam, Sang Ah Lee, Po-Shen Loh, Julia Makinde, Matthew Mckay, Prineha Narang, Sidy Ndao, Michael Niemack, Juan Pedro Ochoa Ricoux, Amy Ogan, Rodney Dewayne Priestley, Simone Schuerle, Mahyar Shirvanimoghaddam, Marcos Simoes-Costa, Alex Thompson, Angela Wu and Yang Na.

In addition, Young Scientists from the Class of 2017 taking part in the meeting include: Nicola Allen, Marta Cerruti, Ding Xianting, Kyle Elliott, Gregory Engel, Rafael Guido, Yoshihiro Kawahara, Rym Kefi, Katherine Kinzler, Andrey Kruglov, Jenny Lee Hyun-Joo, Sheng Li, Tammy Ma, Kristen Marhaver, Marianna Obrist and Yang Fan.

The World Economic Forum’s 12th Annual Meeting of the New Champions is taking place on 18-20 September in Tianjin, People’s Republic of China. Convening under the theme, Shaping Innovative Societies in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, more than 2,000 business leaders, policy-makers and experts from over 80 countries will participate and explore more than 200 sessions over the three days of the meeting.

Oliver Cann, Public Engagement, World Economic Forum

Cupertino, California — Apple today announced iPhone XR, integrating breakthrough technologies from iPhone XS in an all-screen glass and aluminum design with the most advanced LCD in a smartphone featuring a 6.1-inch Liquid Retina display and six beautiful finishes. iPhone XR brings the powerful A12 Bionic chip with next-generation Neural Engine, the TrueDepth camera system, Face ID and an advanced camera system that creates dramatic portraits using a single camera lens. iPhone XR will be available to pre-order beginning Friday, October 19 and in stores beginning Friday, October 26.

iPhone XR comes in six new finishes: white, black, blue, yellow, coral and (PRODUCT)RED.
“iPhone XR helps us reach even more people with the latest iPhone innovations. It is packed with the newest technologies including a 6.1-inch Liquid Retina display that goes edge to edge, the latest TrueDepth camera with faster Face ID authentication, new 7-nanometer A12 Bionic chip with second generation Neural Engine and a 12-megapixel camera that takes advanced Portrait mode and Portrait Lighting photos,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “The new iPhone XR has a gorgeous new aerospace-grade aluminum and glass enclosure that has IP67 protection from liquids and dust, long all-day battery life and comes in six beautiful finishes. iPhone XR makes it possible for even more people to have the great experience of the latest iPhone X technology, in beautiful new designs, at a more affordable price.”

The advanced camera system creates dramatic portraits using a single camera lens.
Groundbreaking Aluminum and Glass Design in Six New Finishes
A stunning all-screen design pushes the display of iPhone XR to its edges. The most durable front glass ever in a smartphone is wrapped in an elegantly matched anodized band made from durable 7000 series aerospace-grade aluminum, and the glass back design enables wireless charging.
iPhone XR comes in six new finishes: white, black, blue, yellow, coral and (PRODUCT)RED. A seven-layer color process gives the glass back beautiful nuanced hues, and the aluminum band and camera trim are color matched to give a sophisticated finish. This new design is splash and water resistant, with a rating of IP67, and protects against everyday spills including coffee, tea and soda.1

iPhone XR is splash- and water-resistant rated IP67 and protects against everyday spills including coffee, tea and soda.
A portion of proceeds for iPhone XR (PRODUCT)RED purchases will go directly to Global Fund HIV/AIDS grants that provide testing, counseling, treatment and prevention programs with a specific focus on eliminating transmission of the virus from mothers to their babies.
Most Advanced LCD in a Smartphone
The beautiful 6.1-inch all-screen Liquid Retina display2 is the most color accurate in the industry, with wide color support and True Tone for a more natural viewing experience. Precision-milled glass, advanced pixel masking and sub-pixel antialiasing allows the display to follow the curves of the device, while a new backlight design enables the display to stretch into the corners.

A beautiful 6.1-inch all-screen Liquid Retina display stretches into the corners of iPhone XR and is the most advanced LCD in a smartphone.
iPhone XR supports fast and fluid iPhone gestures like tap to wake, swipe up to the home screen, swipe down to access notifications and the Control Center, and the new haptic touch feature for pressing on the home screen to instantly launch the camera or flashlight.
A12 Bionic Chip with Next-Generation Neural Engine
The Apple-designed A12 Bionic, the smartest and most powerful chip in a smartphone, features the first 7-nanometer chip ever in a smartphone that delivers industry-leading performance in a more power-efficient design. A12 Bionic features a six-core fusion architecture with two performance cores that are up to 15 percent faster, four efficiency cores that are up to 50 percent more efficient, a four-core GPU that is up to 50 percent faster, powerful Apple-designed Image Signal Processor (ISP), video encoder and more. All of this unlocks new experiences for games, photography, video editing and graphics-intensive apps while still offering great battery life. Even with all this power, iPhone XR lasts up to an hour and a half longer than iPhone 8 Plus.

A12 Bionic unlocks new experiences for AR, games, photography, video editing, graphics-intensive apps and more.
The next-generation Neural Engine is built for advanced machine learning in everything from photography to augmented reality. A new eight-core design allows it to complete up to 5 trillion operations per second compared to 600 billion in A11 Bionic. This enables new capabilities like faster plane detection for ARKit and new features that use real-time machine learning. For the first time the Neural Engine is open to Core ML, empowering developers to build apps that utilize this highly efficient machine learning engine. Core ML running on the A12 Bionic Neural Engine is up to nine times faster than on A11 Bionic, with as little as one-tenth the energy usage.
Face ID, The Most Secure Facial Authentication System Ever in a Smartphone
Face ID is faster on iPhone XR, enabled by software optimizations and a faster secure enclave. The TrueDepth camera system uses precision depth-sensing technology that goes far beyond the capabilities and security of two-dimensional facial scanners to unlock iPhone, use Apple Pay, gain access to secure apps and many more features with just a simple glance.

iPhone XR includes Face ID, the most secure facial authentication system ever in a smartphone.
Advanced Single Lens Wide-Angle Camera
iPhone XR features a 12-megapixel f/1.8 aperture wide-angle lens with an all-new sensor, delivering faster auto-focus, while larger and deeper pixels improve image fidelity and low-light performance on photos and videos. Improvements to the ISP, Neural Engine and improved software algorithms enable portrait photos with a beautiful bokeh effect. Smart HDR brings better highlight and shadow detail across photos.

Featuring the same 12MP f/1.8 aperture wide-angle lens camera as iPhone XS for stunning photos and videos.
New Depth Control allows users to adjust the depth of field both in real-time preview3 and post-capture to create striking portraits with a beautiful bokeh effect. Selfies have never looked better with an enhanced Portrait mode on the front-facing TrueDepth camera and Portrait Lighting for dramatic studio lighting effects.

iPhone XR introduces Portrait mode with a single-lens camera with sophisticated bokeh, and Depth Control lets you adjust the depth of field.
iPhone XR showing Portrait mode.

iPhone XR introduces Portrait mode with a single-lens camera with sophisticated bokeh, and Depth Control lets you adjust the depth of field.
iPhone XR introduces Portrait mode with a single-lens camera with sophisticated bokeh, and Depth Control lets you adjust the depth of field. iPhone XR introduces Portrait mode with a single-lens camera with sophisticated bokeh, and Depth Control lets you adjust the depth of field.
Wireless Technologies
iPhone XR uses LTE Advanced for fast download speeds4 and introduces Dual SIM5 through the use of a nano-SIM and digital eSIM.
Featuring iOS 12
iPhone XR comes with iOS 12, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system. iOS 12 changes the way iOS users see the world using augmented reality, helps people rediscover and share photos, and makes communications more expressive and fun with new Animoji and Memoji. Screen Time helps customers understand and take control of the time they spend interacting with their iOS devices, Siri Shortcuts give any app the ability to work with Siri and new privacy features help protect users from being tracked on the web.

The TrueDepth Camera on iPhone XR enables Portrait mode selfies, Animoji and Memoji.
Pricing and Availability
iPhone XR will be available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB models in white, black, blue, yellow, coral and (PRODUCT)RED starting at $749 (US) from apple.com and Apple Stores, and is also available through Apple Authorized Resellers and select carriers (prices may vary).
Through Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program, customers in the US can get iPhone XR with the protection of AppleCare+, choose their carrier (no multiyear service contract required) and have the opportunity to upgrade to a new iPhone every year. The iPhone Upgrade Program is available for iPhone XR at apple.com and Apple Stores in the US with monthly payments starting at $37.41.
Customers will be able to pre-order iPhone XR beginning Friday, October 19 with availability beginning Friday, October 26, in more than 50 countries and territories including Andorra, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Japan, Jersey, Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the UAE, UK, US and US Virgin Islands.
With Apple GiveBack, customers in the US can trade in their eligible device for an Apple Store Gift Card or a refund on their purchase. If their device isn’t eligible for credit, Apple will recycle it for free.
Every customer who buys iPhone XR from Apple will be offered free Personal Setup in-store or online to help them customize their iPhone by setting up email, showing them new apps from the App Store and more.
Anyone who wants to learn more or go further with iPhone XR or iOS 12 can sign up for free Today at Apple sessions at apple.com/today.

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.

Today, we are excited to announce that Facebook’s first custom-built data center in Asia will be located in Singapore. The 170,000-square-meter data center represents an investment of more than 1.4 billion Singapore dollars, and will support hundreds of jobs and form part of our growing presence in Singapore and across Asia.

We selected Singapore for a number of reasons, including robust infrastructure and access to fiber, a talented local workforce, and a great set of community partners, including the Singapore Economic Development Board and the Jurong Town Corporation, both of which have helped us move this project forward. Singapore has also established policies that foster a business-friendly environment, including measures that support the enforcement of contracts and increase the ease of construction permitting. The World Bank recently named Singapore as the number-one country in Asia to do business.

Our data centers are highly advanced facilities that help bring Facebook apps and services to people around the world every day. The Singapore Data Center will join our portfolio of hyper-efficient facilities; it has been designed from the ground up with new features to minimize the use of water, energy and land. For example, this data center will be the first to incorporate the new StatePoint Liquid Cooling system. This technology minimizes water and power consumption and, according to our testing, can reduce the amount of peak water used by 20 percent in climates like Singapore’s.

We expect the new facility, like all our data centers, to be powered by 100 percent renewable energy, and we are currently working to increase the development of new solar resources in Singapore. When compared to other facilities in the region, it will be a leader in energy efficiency with annual Power Usage Effectiveness of 1.19. This means that almost every watt going into our data center will be used to run the computing equipment. Finally, to conserve space, we have developed a new 11-story building design specifically tailored to Singapore. The building façade is made of a perforated lightweight material that allows airflow and provides glimpses of the state-of-the-art mechanical equipment inside. In order to complete this project, we have selected Fortis Construction to act as general contractor because of our joint experience building efficient data centers.

This data center, and the hardware inside, will help people stay connected with friends and family, discover what’s happening in the world, and share and express what matters to them. And we are thrilled to be building it here in Singapore.

Please visit Facebook.com/SingaporeDataCenter for additional information and fortisconstruction.com/international for construction opportunities.

Mountain View, CA – August 31, 2018… BMW i Ventures has announced a strategic investment in Vera, a company developing innovative data-centric security technology for business of all sizes.

Since the company’s founding, Vera has helped some of the world’s leading companies protect their most critical data, without sacrificing visibility and control. Over the past year, Vera has been focused on scaling its data security platform to protect both email and enterprise content with dynamic encryption and and granular control. The company recently introduced its Vera for Mail offering and browser-based editing capabilities, enhancing users’ ability to access and collaboratre on secure files across devices and operations systems. The new capital will help broadly to fuel Vera’s next phase of growth and scale its workforce globally.

“From documents to CAD files, photos to emails, data moves more freely than ever, and Vera’s leading technology allows people and organizations to share all kinds of information, safely,” said Zach Barasz, Partner at BMW i Ventures. “We believe that Vera is at an important inflection point in its growth curve and with the recent appointment of Carlos Delatorre as CEO, we’re excited to join the journey.

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About BMW i Ventures
BMW i Ventures, BMW’s EUR 500 Mio million venture capital fund, invests money and resources in startups in the fields of autonomous driving, digital car and automotive cloud, e-mobility, artificial Intelligence and data, industry 4.0, shared and on-demand mobility, customer digital life, and energy services. The firm has already partnered with innovative companies such as Carbon3D, Chargepoint, DesktopMetal, JustPark, Life360, Moovit, Nauto, Scoop, Stratim, Turo, Xometry and Zendrive. BMW i Ventures invests in all stages from seed and incubation to growth companies.

Vodafone Group Plc (“Vodafone”) announces that Vodafone Hutchison Australia Pty Limited (“VHA”) and TPG Telecom Limited (“TPG”) have agreed a merger to establish a new fully integrated telecommunications operator in Australia (“MergeCo”).

The merger brings together leading talent in Australia’s mobile and fixed broadband sectors and accelerates the benefits of the substantial network investments made by both companies. The merged company will be a more powerful challenger to Telstra and Optus in Australia, with an integrated fixed and mobile offering. It will also be better able to invest in next generation mobile and fixed networks and drive innovation, service and product improvements to benefit Australian telecoms customers.

Vodafone and Hutchison Telecommunications (Australia) Limited (“HTAL”) will each own an economic interest of 25.05% in MergeCo, with TPG shareholders owning the remaining 49.9%. The Board of MergeCo will comprise: David Teoh, as Chairman (currently CEO and Chairman of TPG), Iñaki Berroeta as Managing Director and CEO (current CEO of VHA), existing TPG directors Robert Millner and Shane Teoh, two nominees of Vodafone, two nominees of HTAL, and two new independent directors. MergeCo will be listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) and called TPG Telecom Limited. There are no changes currently planned to any of the existing brands of either VHA or TPG.

The merger is expected to generate substantial cost synergies from the combination of two complementary networks, rationalisation of duplicated costs and economies of scale. Additionally, the combined entity will benefit from revenue synergies through cross-selling of products across both VHA and TPG’s corporate and consumer customer bases.

The agreed merger ratio implies an enterprise value for VHA of A$7.5 billion. This is equivalent to valuing VHA at 7.4x EV/LTM June 2018 EBITDA and 19.2x EV/LTM June 2018 operating free cash flow (OpFCF). MergeCo will have a pro forma enterprise value of approximately A$15.0 billion, revenue of over A$6.0 billion, EBITDA of over A$1.8 billion and OpFCF of A$0.9 billion. Approximately A$2.0 billion of VHA’s existing debt will be contributed to MergeCo, which will have pro-forma leverage of approximately 2.2x net debt/EBITDA[i] and an expected strong investment grade credit profile. The strong cash generation of the combined entity is expected to support an attractive dividend. It is intended that MergeCo will pay a dividend of at least 50% of net profit after tax adjusted for one-off restructuring costs and certain non-cash items (“Adjusted NPAT”)[ii] and have a medium-term target leverage range of 1.5-2.0x net debt/EBITDA. Vodafone’s interest in MergeCo will be accounted for under the equity method.
Vodafone and HTAL’s shareholdings in MergeCo, and the remaining VHA net debt of approximately A$4.8 billion that will not be contributed into the merged company, will primarily be held through an entity jointly owned by the Vodafone Group and HTAL. Debt held through this entity will be serviced by dividends from MergeCo, and will not be consolidated by Vodafone or HTAL. Vodafone will provide a guarantee on approximately A$2.4bn of this debt, lower than the approximately A$3.3 billion guarantee that Vodafone currently provides for VHA’s debt.

Vodafone, HTAL and David Teoh have entered into a 24 month standstill arrangement in relation to their shareholdings in the combined business.[iii]

Nick Read, CEO-designate, Vodafone, said: “This transaction accelerates Vodafone’s converged communications strategy in Australia and is consistent with our proactive approach to enhance the value of our portfolio of businesses. The combined listed company will be a more capable challenger to Telstra and Optus, and will be much better placed to invest in next generation mobile and fixed line services to benefit Australian consumers and businesses.”

In parallel to the merger agreement, TPG and VHA have signed a separate Joint Venture Agreement. The scope of the joint venture is to acquire, hold and licence 3.6 GHz spectrum. The Government is auctioning 125 MHz of 3.6 GHz band spectrum, with the auction expected to commence in late November 2018. The joint venture will register as a participant in the auction. In addition, the parties will negotiate with the aim of expanding the business of the joint venture in future, including to acquire future spectrum licenses and/or facilitate various forms of efficient spectrum and network sharing including a shared 5G Radio Access Network. The Joint Venture Agreement is ongoing, and will not terminate if the merger fails to proceed.

It is anticipated that the merger will complete in 2019, subject to approval from TPG shareholders and regulatory authorities.

About Vodafone Group
Vodafone Group is one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies and provides a range of services including voice, messaging, data and fixed communications. Vodafone Group has mobile operations in 25 countries, partners with mobile networks in 46 more, and fixed broadband operations in 18 markets. As of 30 June 2018, Vodafone Group had 534.5 million mobile customers and 19.9 million fixed broadband customers, including India and all of the customers in Vodafone’s joint ventures and associates. For more information, please visit: www.vodafone.com.

About VHA
VHA is Australia’s third largest mobile operator which is owned 50/50 by HTAL and Vodafone Group and has a mobile customer base of approximately 6 million subscribers as of 30 June 2018. It owns and operates a fixed-wireless mobile network with over 5,000 sites, international transit capacity and a strategic portfolio of spectrum assets.

About TPG
TPG is an ASX listed, Australian telecommunications provider with Australia’s second largest fixed line residential subscriber base (over 1.9 million customers) and a significant corporate, government and wholesale business. TPG owns and operates a 27,000km+ metropolitan and inter-capital fibre network.

PALO ALTO, Calif. — HP Inc. and a global community of creators today unveiled a groundbreaking virtual reality (VR) simulation of what life on Mars could look like for a human population of one million people. The HP Mars Home Planet program, led by HP and NVIDIA,® is the culmination of a year-long engagement with the creative community to simulate life on the Red Planet.

The program attracted over 90,000 creative professionals, architects, engineers and students spanning more than 150 countries. The most innovative ideas were brought to life through a VR experience created by Technicolor that premieres this week at SIGGRAPH, the world’s largest conference on computer graphics. The non-VR trailer is available now at https://youtu.be/DU7A8Q00xWw.

“The ultimate power for fully-immersive VR experiences comes from the creative community and the computing process delivered by HP and our partners,” said Xavier Garcia, vice president and general manager, Z by HP, HP Inc. “HP’s technology leadership, rich history of product innovation and understanding of the creative workflow is bringing amazing ideas to life.”

The HP Mars Home Planet VR experience takes users through a Martian Community Onboarding Center, showing innovations in areas such as architecture, engineering and transportation that enable humans to make the leap to Mars. Technicolor developed the stunning visuals for the experience in Epic’s Unreal Engine, resulting in the first ever six-degrees-of-freedom VR piece built for motion-enabled chairs, using HP Windows Mixed Reality headsets. The environments and key assets from the VR experience will be released back to the creative community through an Unreal Engine download this fall.

“We are living in interesting times when technological advancement is being met by a broad array of foundational space science and planetary research—a confluence that will optimistically serve to accelerate our path toward human exploration and settlement of Mars,” said Dr. Darlene Lim, Principal Investigator, NASA Biologic Analog Science. “Today, people around the world are dreaming and innovating towards this future, and the amazing entries from the HP Mars Home Planet project’s creative community give us a virtual window into what life on Mars could be like for a million members of humanity.”

Universities and schools worldwide also took on the universe-changing effort of reinventing, designing and experiencing life in an urban area of Mars Valley in VR. Supported by HP technology and leaders in higher education, these institutions created teams as part of the Education League for HP Mars Home Planet. Ten universities in Europe and two universities in Australia competed in the project, with Japan conducting a separate contest with 110 submissions—judged separately—to select winners who submitted entries to HP Mars Home Planet.

HP Enhances Commercial VR Portfolio for Channel and Customers

Additionally, today HP announced enhancements to its game-changing commercial VR products and end-to-end VR solutions for workflow transformation. Details on HP’s advancements include:

· HTC Vive Pro will be added to HP’s head-mounted display (HMD) portfolio this September. Designed for demanding users, the VIVE Pro is a premium VR headset, offering a complete package of top-tier graphics, high-resolution audio and optimized ergonomics.

· Pixo VR provides VR training solutions for the construction, manufacturing, energy and utilities verticals. Its fully immersive and interactive training helps boost learning retention and performance while reducing on-the-job errors and accidents through VR scenarios that can be both repeated and randomized.

· StarVR is adopting HP’s powerful VR hardware and its VR Backpack to showcase the new StarVR headset. This HMD with an industry-leading 210-degree field of view, integrated eye tracking, advanced optics and custom AMOLED displays is a premium VR headset built from the ground-up for enterprise and professional entertainment.

· The HP VR Launch Kit for Unreal Engine beta is now live and available for download at Epic.gm/HPvrkit. Addressing a range of cumbersome aspects of VR, the kit has been created to accelerate decisions by dramatically streamlining VR adoption, development and deployment for design visualization.

The expanded HP solutions are part of the company’s continued momentum in the commercial VR category. Recent examples include location-based entertainment activations with Dave & Buster’s Jurassic World VR experience and Noitom’s Alice Space Lunar Mission; an alliance with DiSTI to provide VR training solutions; and collaboration on a clinical trial with Firsthand Technology to help patients manage pain.

About HP Mars Home Planet
The global project, pairing co-creation with VR to simulate a utopian civilization on the Red Planet, received nearly 1,000 entries from the HP Mars Home Planet project’s participants. The final phase, culminated with nine winners of its Rendering Challenge. Previously announced were winners of the Concept Challenge and the 3D Modeling Challenge.

The winners of each phase were determined by public voting and an esteemed panel of judges, including: Dr. Robert Zubrin, President, Mars Society; Carla Swickerath, CEO, Studio Libeskind; Chris DeFaria, President, Dreamworks Animation Group; Stacy Wolff, VP Industrial Design, HP; Dr. Darlene Lim, Principal Investigator, NASA Biologic Analog Science; Dr. Sanjay Vijendran, Mars Mission, European Space Agency; John Spencer, Executive VP & Chief Designer, Mars World Enterprises; Hilda Espinal, CTO, Cannon Design; Jeff Mottle, CEO, CGarchitect; Andrew Rink, Marketing Strategist, NVIDIA; and Sean Young, Product Development & AEC, HP.

HP Mars Home Planet involved members of its Advisory Board, including Marcie Jastrow, SVP of Immersive Media and head of the Technicolor Experience Center; Ted Gagliano, president of Post Production for Twentieth Century Fox; Ted Schilowitz, futurist at Paramount Pictures; Jen Dennis, head of VR at RSA Films; and Joaquin Ruiz, Dean of the College of Sciences at the University of Arizona.

Advancing the work initially done for Mars 2030 – a VR experience created by Fusion with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) – HP, NVIDIA® and Launch Forth teamed up with Autodesk, Unreal Engine, Fusion, HTC Vive, Microsoft, Chaos Group, Allegorithmic and Technicolor to bring HP Mars Home Planet to life.

The project is powered by Launch Forth, a product design platform powered by a robust co-creation community of designers, engineers and solvers. Allowing people everywhere to collaborate on ideas, solve problems and create solutions for challenges big and small, Launch Forth utilizes open innovation to accelerate the product development process.

For more information on HP Mars Home Planet, visit http://www.hpmarshomeplanet.com/.

For more information on HP VR ready products, visit http://www8.hp.com/us/en/solutions/vrready/index.html.

About HP
HP Inc. creates technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere. Through our portfolio of printers, PCs, mobile devices, solutions, and services, we engineer experiences that amaze. More information about HP Inc. is available at http://www.hp.com.