Advertisement
Huawei
TechBig Tech

Huawei’s automated smart terminal at Tianjin Port offers glimpse of company’s future under US sanctions

  • Huawei and the Port of Tianjin collaborated to run a smart terminal that automates operations using self-driving vehicles, 5G, IoT and other tech
  • The telecoms equipment maker has sought new forms of revenue after US sanctions hobbled its smartphone business

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
4
The Port of Tianjin, pictured here on January 16, 2023, has collaborated with Huawei to build an automated terminal where cranes and self-driving vehicles offload and transport shipping containers with little-to-no human intervention. Photo: Tracy Qu / SCMP
Tracy Quin Tianjin

Sixty kilometres from downtown Tianjin, a coastal metropolis southeast of Beijing on the shore of the Bohai Sea, cranes towering over a ship at the largest port in Northern China offload containers onto an electric vehicle that brings the goods to land. It is an all-too-familiar process to any dockworker, except this particular terminal has no workers on the ground at all.

The automated terminal, which went into operation in October 2021, is one of the latest efforts from Huawei Technologies Co as it seeks to bolster its domestic commercial offerings in the face of US sanctions that have hobbled its consumer technology business overseas. The project, a collaboration with the Port of Tianjin and other partners, uses autonomous driving, 5G, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to create more automated, greener operations, according to Huawei.

The reason no humans are allowed in the automated area of the terminal is that they are the most unpredictable factor for such systems. When the automated system encounters a situation it cannot handle, the problem is sent to a control centre, where employees control the system remotely.

Problems that cannot be solved by the automated system itself are sent to a control centre, where workers can intervene by controlling the equipment remotely. Photo: Tracy Qu / SCMP
Problems that cannot be solved by the automated system itself are sent to a control centre, where workers can intervene by controlling the equipment remotely. Photo: Tracy Qu / SCMP

At traditional terminals, by contrast, dockworkers control the cranes themselves to ensure containers are put in the right place, then human drivers transport the containers along the same routes each day.

“At the beginning, [the Port of Tianjin] told us that it is very difficult to hire drivers, and after recruitment, the attrition rate for drivers was very high,” said Yue Kun, chief technology officer at Huawei’s Smart Road, Waterway & Port Business Unit.

Yang Jiemin, vice-president of Tianjin Port Group, said the new smart terminal needs just 200 workers compared with 800 at a traditional terminal.

“At traditional container terminals, all equipment, including large-scale equipment, and every vehicle require a driver,” he said. “So with this technology, we are able to see a big reduction in required manpower.”

With this project, Huawei is seeking to tap into a global smart port market expected to reach US$11.15 billion by 2030, according to a recent report from Research and Markets.

Advertisement