Huawei Announces HarmonyOS 5 Operating System With AI Features for PCs

Huawei on Thursday introduced HarmonyOS 5, its first-ever self-developed working system (OS) for PCs on the HarmonyOS Computer Technology and Ecosystem Communication occasion in China. It is claimed to be based mostly on the corporate’s HarmonyOS Next cellular OS which was introduced in October 2024 and has been developed independently of Android. Huawei claims it has been rebuilt from the kernel with enhancements made to HarmonyOS Base, HarmonyOS Ecosystem, and HarmonyOS Experience. It can help as much as 1,000 exterior peripherals.

The OS leverages Ark graphics for delivering a easy efficiency, whereas the onboard AI assistant can summarise and translate paperwork, and ship question responses. Huawei says its upcoming PCs can be powered by HarmonyOS 5 though it didn’t reveal if any present fashions might help it too.

HarmonyOS 5 Features

As per Huawei, it has developed and optimised over 150 functions for pc ecosystem use. More than 2,000 common ecosystem functions have additionally been built-in. HarmonyOS 5 makes use of the Ark graphics engine for delivering visible experiences, offering dynamic results in wallpaper, multi-windows, and through multitasking. It permits customisation through private themes.

Multi-window view in HarmonyOS 5
Photo Credit: Huawei

Similar to a Windows-based expertise, customers can open home windows and alter their icon and dimension as per their choice. Additionally, the standing bar and the duty bar might be customised too. There are gravity results for the house display and photographic results for numerous app icons. The OS helps gestures like a three-finger slide for returning to desktop in addition to opening the multitask centre interface.

HarmonyOS 5 options an upgraded Smart Office suite which is claimed to enhance collaboration between a number of gadgets, allow AI options, and hyperlink with different ecosystem gadgets.

An enormous a part of the OS depends on AI for finishing up numerous duties, offering personalised content material and sensible providers based mostly on totally different situations. There’s a built-in AI assistant with understanding and interplay capabilities. It can translate paperwork into 21 languages, summarise them, generate studies, and even create journey itineraries. The assistant helps multi-modal interactions, accepting voice instructions, textual content, and pictures as prompts. It has on-screen content material consciousness which may analyse the content material at the moment displaying on the display and supply responses to queries based mostly on that. There’s additionally a Circle-to-Search-like performance which customers can toggle to focus on part of the display and ask the AI chatbot about it or toggle its internet lookup.

Leveraging the brand new star defend safety structure, the HarmonyOS 5 is claimed to ship sturdy consumer privateness safety. The firm emphasises that rigorous safety checks happen earlier than an utility is made accessible on the App market. The OS is geared toward delivering a unified ecosystem, comprising smartphones, tablets, PCs, and different gadgets. As per Huawei, customers can share peripherals like keyboard and mouse throughout gadgets. It additionally helps high-speed file transfers between gadgets.