Huawei launched an alliance with 14 partners at a Shanghai summit on Sept. 17, setting a city AI agenda around computing collaboration, data circulation and scenario innovation.
The Global AI CITY Innovation & Development Ecosystem Alliance will focus on those priorities, Huawei said. The company named TIS, Egabi Solution, HMN Tech, Epoint and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization among its partners. It did not publish the full roster of 14.
Huawei said more than 500 people attended the Global Government AI CITY Innovation Summit, held in Shanghai during HUAWEI CONNECT 2026. The audience included government representatives, industry experts and ecosystem partners, the company said. Customers from Angola, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Guangzhou and Shanghai shared city AI experiences, Huawei said.
Huawei proposed using OpenHarmony for city terminals and Ascend AI computing to coordinate devices, edge systems and cloud services. It also outlined a “Token Factory” concept that would use power locally and keep data within national borders. Huawei said the model could allow AI services to be exported.
China’s State Information Center and Huawei Cloud released the AI CITY Development Research Report 2026 at the summit. The report sets out its “123N” model alongside six components: a city public cloud, data resources, AI models, agents, digital-intelligence services and safeguards. It presents AI CITY as a proposed shift from data-driven city systems toward “city super agents.”
Huawei said the approach could support public services and city governance and help local AI industries. Its expanded account cited a Saudi urban work-order system with incident-classification accuracy above 80% and Ethiopia’s MESOB platform, which it said offered 288 services from 27 ministries. The examples span municipal incident handling and access to government services.
Huawei’s announcement disclosed no alliance budget, deployment timetable or cost estimates and named no procurement contracts or commitments.
