Huawei has launched its own video streaming service in China, similar to Netflix or Amazon. To make videos easy to search, to insert adverts intelligently or ot make recommendations, it is important to know the content of the video in detail. To date, this is usually done manually by viewers tagging scenes as they watch. Huawei undertook a collaborative research project in 2017 with the SFI funded Insight Centre at DCU to investigate the use of AI techniques to do this automatically. The project was a success and led to patentable IP assigned to the company.
The research has advanced the state-of-the-art video tagging techniques and will enable Huawei to differentiate its video service and to look at other applications in its product portfolio. The success of this project led to further research collaborations between DCU and Huawei.
In 2019, both organisations embarked on a significant research project focused on 5G networking technologies. The ambitious research will see a multi-million-euro Huawei investment and multiple project collaborations between Huawei and DCU.
The innovation office at DCU (DCU Invent) was involved from the outset of the collaboration and worked closely with Huawei on legal agreements, funding mechanisms for the project as well as developing and managing a work plan. DCU Invent also recorded deliverables from the project to enable the licensing/assignment of the project IP at the end of the project.
Speaking of the research relationship, Derek Collins, Director of Industry & Academia Research Collaboration at Huawei’s Irish Research Centre in Dublin said
“Huawei continues to work closely with the researchers in the Insight Centre at Dublin City University to develop new technologies and advance the state-of-the art Machine Learning and Cloud Computing techniques. DCU Invent has been very helpful at all stages of this process and we look forward to our continued collaboration with DCU and plan more projects like this in the future.”
Huawei also works with other universities in Ireland, including those with SFI centres Insight, ADAPT and LERO. Professor Noel O’Connor, CEO at Insight in DCU attributes the wider engagement between the company and Irish HEIs to the work with DCU saying
“We have worked with Huawei on a number of other projects, I believe this initial research collaboration helped build confidence in the Irish research system as Huawei are now engaged with other SFI Centres and universities.“
Publish date: 2019
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