- Hey, this is Sam.
I'm at the Camp Nou, FC Barcelona's beautiful stadium
and we are going to see what Huawei claims,
is the world's first self-driving car,
powered by a smart phone.
(electronic music)
They're using the Mate 10 Pro and it's Kirin 970 chip,
which has AI capabilities inside it
and what they claim is that the processing inside the phone,
is gonna help the car detect and avoid obstacles
and behind the camera there is a Porsche Panamera
with a Mate 10 Pro mounted on the dashboard,
going forwards and backwards and forwards and backwards,
over there, there are a bunch of cardboard cut-outs,
there's a giant soccer ball, there's a guy with a bike,
there's a dog
and on the first run,
the Porsche is driving at five miles an hour
and during that time it's learning to recognize the object
and we are gonna say, like, what to do,
when it sees the object, should it swerve right,
should it make an emergency stop or so on.
Then on the second run, it's gonna drive at 30 miles an hour
it's gonna recognize one of the objects and hopefully,
if the system works, it will act accordingly.
We're waiting for the USBC connection to work.
Story of my life.
So yeah, we're sat in this Porsche
and it looks pretty much like a normal car,
I think that's sort of the point of this demo,
just like the car is not an unusual car,
beyond the mountain of tech on top of it,
it's just a regular car.
So the phone isn't acting completely by itself, to be clear,
there is a big ski box on top of the car,
with a bunch of tech in it, there's the whole camera set-up
and that's what's sort of acting as the eyes for the phone.
It's linked up to the phone by a USBC but the processing
and the recognition is what's happening on the phone
and that's the important thing, Huawei says.
So I've, everything is set up,
the phone has taken control of the engine.
Now the phone says your car are ready, are you?
Press drive and enjoy the ride. So, let's do that.
I feel very ready.
(awkward music)
We're moving.
At five miles an hour.
There is nobody next to me.
So I guess what's happening right now is the tech above me,
is viewing all these cardboard images in front of me
and the phone is learning what they are.
A bicycle has been detected.
Now we're looking at a soccer ball.
A ball has been detected.
Now, most importantly, is it gonna detect the dog?
The dog has been detected.
What was that?
So our first run has been scuppered
because the phone lost it's connection to the camera
on top of the car because of perhaps a faulty USBC cable,
which we've all been there.
Okay - Put on phase two, okay
So, if you'd like to press continue.
Okay, so if you see a bicycle,
do you want it to swerve left, swerve right or break?
- Err, let's swerve left
- If you see a ball?
- Swerve right.
- Okay and if you see the dog?
- That's break.
- Right, okay, very good.
So the guys are now gonna pick one at random
and put it out on the track.
- So if we see the ball, the car's gonna swerve right
- Very good, okay, so we're going to gear,
so if you'd like to press I'm in gear.
- Okay, we're in gear.
I messed up the touch.
(car revs)
Whoa, we're going.
- [Man Behind Steering Wheel] We're scanning for obstacles.
A ball has been detected, preparing to swerve right
- [Man In Passenger Seat] Swerve right.
Wow, I guess it worked.
So, Huawei isn't getting into autonomous driving
or self-driving cars on a real level,
this is really about showing off what its phones can do.
Huawei has been talking for a long time
about the AI capabilities of its processes,
the Kirin 970 is said to have an NPU,
a neural processing unit
and this is really just a way to show off,
how the phone can use its capabilities in a real time way.
The man is going to get some tape, thank you.
I just wanna capture how beautiful the camera looks.
Which is very beautiful.