Unfazed by trade war, Google collaborates with Huawei on health care AI initiative
- Huawei’s new Track AI product for diagnosing eye conditions was built with Google’s TensorFlow software
- A creative team that works with Google’s advertising clients also provided marketing help to Huawei
When Huawei Technologies announced its latest smartphone last week, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker also shared another product. Track AI promises to pair software with Huawei devices to let “non-trained professionals” diagnose eye conditions.
Missing from the Chinese company’s announcement was Google’s work behind the scenes.
Huawei built Track AI using TensorFlow, a set of artificial intelligence software tools from Alphabet’s Google. TensorFlow is also open-source, so anyone, anywhere can use it and Google cannot control access.
A creative team that works with Google’s advertising clients, however, also provided marketing help to Huawei, according to Google spokesman Chris Brummitt.
Those teams regularly work with Google clients to “make the most of what’s possible with technology, leading to ideas like this one”, said Brummitt, while stressing that no Google engineers worked on the project.