This information was given by Honor's leaders at the 2025 Mobile Device Exhibition (MWC), taking place in Barcelona, Spain. Accordingly, Honor has a plan called Alpha, committed to investing 10 billion USD in the next 5 years, to develop from a smartphone maker to an ecosystem company focusing on AI (artificial intelligence) devices.
The initiative will begin with the launch of an AI smartphone designed to change the way users interact with their mobile phones, eventually expanding to an ecosystem of other devices, including personal computers, tablets, and wearable devices.
Honor plans to invest a large part of the $10 billion to cooperate with global partners to "open up technological boundaries" and "co-create a new model for AI devices". That includes enhancing traditional hardware with AI and developing next-generation AI agents to interact with humans and devices.
The remaining amount will be allocated to allow more AI devices to communicate with each other and prepare for the generally generally AI era.
Li, who took over from his predecessor George Zhao Ming in January 2025, urged industry partners to share their AI capabilities to create a platform for many AI-enabled devices.
This announcement was made as Honor - a smartphone maker based in Shenzhen - is looking for a new direction after reforming the management board. Their new leadership is under a lot of pressure, in the context of fierce competition in the smartphone market.
Last week, Honor said it integrated the R1 model of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek into its Yoyo virtual assistant and its smartphone and laptop search engine.
In China, Honor has partnered with technology giants including Alibaba Group Holding, Tencent Holdings and ByteDance to provide AI tools on its smartphones.
Internationally, Honor is partnering with Google to integrate Gemini AI models into its devices.
