Honor believes that artificial intelligence (AI) on smartphones opens the door to the era of artificial general intelligence (AGI).
This is according to Fred Zhou, CEO of Honor South Africa, who took part in a panel discussion on the future of AI at the African Tech Festival in Cape Town on Tuesday 11 November 2025.
However, he explained that there are several steps before AGI becomes a reality, the first of which is making AI available to all smartphone users.
“This device is the gateway to the AGI era. What Honor is offering to all consumers and partners is that we have the flagship Magic series,” said Zhou.
“We also have the Number series, which is designed for content creators with a 200MP AI super zoom camera, and finally we have the X series.”
He added that Honor doesn’t want AI to be limited to flagship products or high-end devices. We believe this technology should be available to everyone.
In this regard, Zhou said Honor is offering AI capabilities in its mass-market X series. However, he added that no single company can build the AI era alone.
“We will make intelligent mobile phones available to everyone, because whether in South Africa or in Africa, we have to think about reality,” he said.
“So we’re making the X-Series accessible to everyone. We’re partnering with many different carriers and technology partners in the industry to make AI more accessible to everyone.”
Zhou added that to integrate AI into daily life, Honor is working with many global partners towards the goal of building the AGI era.
According to Chou, there are three steps to achieving an intelligent world. The first is to make AI accessible on affordable devices, and the second is to develop an intelligent and open ecosystem.
This will enable everyone to participate in AGI, leading to Step 3: an intelligent world where silicon-based robots and carbon-based humans work together.
Democratization of AI
Zhou explained that Honor has already made significant progress in achieving the first step, and the company plans to invest $10 billion (R171 billion) in the AI industry to help achieve the second step.
He said this will be done in collaboration with Honor’s partners including Qualcomm, Google and Intel.
The event featured a panel discussion with Akhram Mohamed, technology analyst and founder of Geekhub, and Andisa Ntsubane, managing executive of brand, marketing and communications at Vodacom Group.
Mohamed said he agreed that AI needs to be democratized for everyone by providing the technology on devices at a variety of budgets.
“From flagship to entry level. This is very important because if you look 10 years ago, every company was competing on megapixels, RAM and processing speed,” he said.
“That is no longer the case. The competition of the future will be about algorithms, intelligence, and experience.”
He added that AI has the potential to help people from all walks of life, from farmers improving yields to students closing learning gaps to businesspeople developing strategies using only their mobile devices.
“The difference in competitiveness is going to be who can put that experience into practice better,” Mohamed said.
Ntsubane added that Vodacom Group believes that AI can improve the lives of its customers and connect them to new opportunities, while making them more productive.
