Chinese telecoms giant Huawei is preparing to launch an operating system for the internet of things that's just 10 kilobytes in size. The company says that its "LiteOS" is the "lightest" software of its kind and can be used to power a range of smart devices — from wearables to cars. Huawei predicts that by 2025 there will be roughly 100 billion internet-connected devices in the world, with 2 million new sensors deployed every hour. The company also said that the OS would be "opened to all developers" to allow them to quickly create their own smart products — although it's unclear whether this means that LiteOS will be fully open-source. Huawei says LiteOS also supports "zero configuration, auto-discovery, and auto-networking."

"We want to provide the connections, not the devices."

William Xu, Huawei’s head of strategy and marketing, said that the company wasn't interested in building its own internet-connected gadgets. "We want to provide the connections, not the devices," said Xu, according to a report in the Financial Times. He added that LiteOS was not an attempt to compete with smartphone operating systems like Android or iOS either, but would instead be used to power a range of gadgets — for both businesses and consumers. Xu gave the example of the electric toothbrush, saying a connected version would "record how often and how effectively you brush your teeth, and could tell you when to do it and how to do it better."