Huawei announced plans to invest CNY10 billion ($1.4 billion) in a massive new R&D centre in Shanghai, which will focus on wireless and IoT networks as well as chips for various devices, South China Morning Post reported.
The under-fire vendor, facing trade bans from the US and a number of other countries due to security concerns, already has 14 R&D facilities across the world as well as 36 joint innovation centres. The new facility will cover about 1 square km and employ up to 40,000 people, the newspaper wrote.
In May Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei expressed confidence the company will survive a US ban on component and software shipments because it had already prepared [1] for the eventuality. He later said the company will not reduce its R&D investment [2], with plans to “reinvent ourselves”, meaning it will push to be less reliant on imports.
The company said it invests $15 billion to $20 billion a year in R&D and plans to raise the level to $100 billion over the next five years.
At the end of July, Huawei reported a 23 per cent year-on-year increase in H1 revenue [3] to CNY401.3 billion despite US trade restrictions, though chairman Liang Hua warned future increases could be slowed by ongoing issues.
[1] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/asia/asia-news/huawei-founder-ren-ready-for-us-ban/[2] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/home-banner/huawei-to-take-30b-hit-from-us-restrictions/
[3] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/top-three/us-restrictions-fail-to-halt-huawei-revenue-growth/
