Trade war didn’t stop Google, Huawei AI tie-up

When Huawei announced its latest smartphone last week, the world’s largest telecommunications gear maker also shared another product — Track AI.

Track AI promises to pair software with Huawei devices to let “non-trained professionals” diagnose eye conditions. Missing from the Chinese company’s announcement was Google’s work behind the scenes. Huawei Technologies built Track AI using TensorFlow, a set of AI software tools from Alphabet’s Google. TensorFlow is also open-source, so anyone, anywhere can use it and Google can’t control access.

However, a creative team that works with Google’s advertising clients also provided marketing help to Huawei, according to Google spokesman Chris Brummitt. These teams regularly work with Google clients to “make the most of what’s possible with technology, leading to ideas like this one”, Brummitt added, while stressing that no Google engineers worked on the project.