Esi : Huawei and ESI Sign a Memorandum of Understanding

Paris, France - September 8, 2016 - ESI Group, leading innovator in Virtual Prototyping software and services for manufacturing industries worldwide, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. The signature ceremony took place during the event HUAWEI CONNECT 2016 in Shanghai, China on September 1, 2016. The two parties will collaborate on High-Performance Computing (HPC) and cloud computing to provide innovative industrial manufacturing solutions for customers in China and worldwide. They also jointly released a white paper on the Huawei HPC platform-based ESI Virtual Performance Solution (VPS), a leading software solution used by industrial OEMs and their suppliers in order to test virtually all aspects of their product performance, including crash and safety. Often demanding large simulation models to achieve high levels of precision and predictive capabilities, VPS users greatly benefit from Huawei's robust and efficient IT platforms, and the work done by Huawei and ESI to optimize the way their products work together.

Also a focus at HUAWEI CONNECT 2016 and important to the collaboration between Huawei and ESI, ESI's virtual reality solution, IC.IDO, enables the Huawei HPC platform to provide customers with digital equipment room layouts that are of a 1:1 proportion to those of the physical environments. Leveraging the virtual reality technology, designers can keep improving virtual prototypes during product R&D to reduce the need for physical prototypes, which results in a dramatic reduction in design costs and shorter product development cycles.

The MoU signed by the two parties includes multiple cooperation plans. One is to build a joint innovation center in Munich, Germany to enable the two parties to validate innovative cloud computing and HPC solutions based on ESI's industrial simulation test applications and Huawei's leading IT products and platforms. Another is to build a global experience center in Hangzhou, China that will allow customers to experience the latest products and service training sessions. The two parties also agreed to initiate a series of cooperation projects worldwide to jointly promote and deliver innovative cloud computing, HPC product R&D, simulation, and data analytics solutions. All these cooperative efforts will provide global customers with innovative R&D technologies to help them address challenges brought by the ongoing exponential growth of ICT technology.

Commenting at the MoU signing ceremony, Zheng Yelai, President, Huawei IT Product Line, said: 'The ongoing digital transformation of industrial manufacturing demands enterprise-level IT solutions that are more intelligent, efficient, and convenient, especially in the HPC domain. Upholding the core values of openness, cooperation, and win-win, Huawei consolidates resources and capabilities of all its industrial partners to provide more powerful industrial manufacturing solutions for customers to help them succeed.'

Christopher St. John, ESI COO, said: 'ESI is delighted to have built an important partnership with Huawei over the past year, started as we collaborated to meet the HPC needs of a mutual customer in China. Initiated in China, where we have served international and domestic customers since 2004, we have been excited to discover a new global business partner with an aligned understanding of how enterprises of all scales can benefit from the virtualization of their product development processes. Teaming up to define and deliver public and private cloud based platforms for collaborative virtual prototyping, big data analytics, machine learning and more, we are together able to address the diverse needs and ambitions of our customers. Importantly we have the same sense of urgency and commitment to innovation.'