Huawei Made A Porsche Controllable Via Smartphone

With all the advancements in smartphone and automotive technologies lately, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a mobile device can actually control a car. Even so, it can still be a bit jarring to know that Huawei managed to pair its flagship smartphone with a semi-autonomous Porsche, showing off its artificial intelligence capabilities.

The showcase was done during the 2018 MWC, Engadget reports, where the company decided to make a fuss over its neural processing technology. It didn’t really have a new phone to reveal that would grab the attention of attendees, but having its flagship device control a car was guaranteed to turn a few heads, at least.

Now, it’s worth noting that the Mate 10 Pro could never match the capabilities of onboard AI processors dedicated to autonomous driving that are installed in other vehicles. However, it was still impressive how it allowed for even limited autonomous functionality with the Porsche it was partnered with.

As the publication notes, however, the company has made no indication that it intends to enter the car space the way that Apple and Google are doing. The move was simply to bring attention to its AI development.

By and large, the AI in the Mate 10 Pro seems smart enough to actually recognize objects on the road and follow the simplest commands, TechCrunch reports. When it was about to hit a cyclist, for example, the Porsche swerved to avoid a collision, which is in keeping with the instructions that the passengers had set beforehand.

Naturally, a real autonomous vehicle would have made these decisions on its own, but the results were complex enough to actually get the point across. Huawei is developing a sophisticated neural network for its devices, which it hopes to capitalize on in the future. Even if it’s not necessarily in the auto industry, there are plenty of other uses for smartphone AIs such as smart assistants.