Huawei, 'China's Apple', launches Internet of Things platform to power cars and houses

Company joins others like Google, Intel and Apple in attempting to create a platform for smart devices

The epitome of big business, Huawei had revenues of £21bn in 2012 (Getty Images)

Huawei, the company often described as China's Apple, has launched its own platform for connected homes and the internet of things.

The "Agile IoT" architecture, which includes a special operating system called LiteOS, will become a platform for devices from cars to appliances to be able to communicate with each other, Huawei hopes. The company is the latest to move into the field, following companies like Google and Apple into what is expected to be one of the biggest tech trends in the coming years.

While a number of companies including appliance and car makers already make things that could belong to the Internet of Things, the challenge is creating a technological standard to allow all of those different things to talk to one another. Huawei said that its Agile architecture could become a free and open standard that the makers of such devices could then use to allow to talk to one another.

The company is also making wireless devices as part of the same project.

Huawei is primarily known as a smartphone manufacturer, though it does make other devices like a fitness tracker and has been rumoured to be planning its own connected devices.

But smartphone firms like Apple and Google are looking to seize on the growing trend of the Internet of Things, launching different platforms that could help create homes that are controlled by handheld devices.