Feeling the financial pinch, notably due to US sanctions hitting hard in the smartphone market, Huawei has announced plans to try out its technologies in the field of pig farming in China.

For that, Huawei intends to make good use of its knowledge and expertise in the fields of 5G, artificial intelligence and facial recognition.

No longer authorised to use Android or Google services in its latest smartphones – making them almost impossible to sell outside of Asia – and locked out of developing 5G technology in many countries, Huawei is looking for ways to diversify its activities, still supported by the Chinese government.

Today, Huawei is out to shake up the pig farming industry. The idea is to create a new kind of pig farm – one that’s futuristic, connected and intelligent.

The announcement was made on the Weibo social network, without any further details for the time being.

Note that China is home to the world’s largest pig farming industry, with one in two of the world’s pigs currently raised in China.

The technology that Huawei is bringing to the industry aims to modernise pig farms as they currently operate.

For example, 5G can be used to help farmers keep count of and locate their animals, but also to potentially monitor their weight or heart rate.

Artificial intelligence can then analyse data in real time and may be able to help prevent certain forms of disease.

Finally, facial recognition could be used to identify individual pigs. Huawei has already developed particularly advanced facial recognition technology, which is already rooted in the daily lives of people in China.

Here, it could be adapted for use with pigs.

Next, Huawei has its sights set on the coal mining industry, for which the firm plans to create an innovation lab in Shanxi Province in northern China.