Huawei's HarmonyOS Next to Launch in China on October 22; Will Come With AI Features

Huawei's proprietary operating system (OS) dubbed HarmonyOS Next will be unveiled in China next week, the company confirmed via social media on Tuesday. It was initially rumoured to be released in September but the announcement did not take place. The Chinese smartphone maker's upcoming OS does not rely on Google's Android Open Source Project (AOSP) code but is built on the Hongmeng kernel and system architecture. This means existing Android apps running on Huawei devices will not be compatible with HarmonyOS Next.

Huawei HarmonyOS Next Launch

In a post on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, Huawei confirmed that HarmonyOS Next will be introduced in China at 7 pm local time on October 22. This launch is speculated to coincide with the launch of the purported Huawei Nova 13 series whose pre-reservations have already commenced.

The company already previewed a developer version of its upcoming OS last year and it appears to borrow design elements from Harmony OS – Huawei's Android skin. This applies to the app arrangements, widgets, notification bar and control centre. Huawei has confirmed that HarmonyOS Next will bring support for over 10,000 applications and services for its smartphones and other devices.

Huawei's OS is built to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) at its core, from the kernel system to apps. Huawei says it can not only use it to control the system elements but also enable its use in third-party applications. HarmonyOS Next also comes with a built-in system-level AI assistant that has high-level understanding and interaction capabilities.

It uses an AI agent dubbed Celia which is built on Huawei's Pangu large language model (LLM). Additionally, it can also take advantage of third-party cloud-based AI models to provide enhanced services. Courtesy of its inclusion, the OS is capable of providing personalised content and smart services based on different scenarios.

Huawei says HarmonyOS Next can reduce the developers' adaptation and development costs by providing them with 18 pit code samples and native interconnection kits. Leveraging the new star shield security architecture, the OS has nuclear-level system-wide security, the company adds.