Tech frontier | China launches self-developed smartphone operating system

(ECNS)-- China's first homegrown mobile operating system - HarmonyOS NEXT was released in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province on Tuesday as the third of its kind globally apart from Android and Apple's iOS.

It marks another milestone for developer Huawei since Washington put it on the "Entity List" in 2019.

According to Huawei, the new system takes the lead not only in battery performance but also in security and privacy. It is the fifth iteration of HarmonyOS, installed on over 1 billion devices so far.

HarmonyOS NEXT boasts its own operating kernel, file system, programming language, AI framework, large-scale AI models, and other features developed without using the Linux kernel or Android open-source code.

Besides, it also enables multi-scenario coordination of various platforms, including smartphones, tablets, cars, and other intelligent devices.

"HarmonyOS NEXT provides a new option and market space for the development of related industries around the world," said Yu Chengdong, Huawei's executive director, at the event.

As an open-source operating system, HarmonyOS was first launched in August 2019 and installed on smartphones in 2021. It has replaced iOS to become the second-largest mobile operating system on the Chinese market.

Over the years, Huawei has been stepping up R&D efforts. In September 2023, it announced the launch of native HarmonyOS apps. Currently, there are more than 15,000 applications and meta-services available on the system, covering 18 sectors and over 38 million enterprises.