Huawei has significant presence in Waterloo
Company whose CFO was arrested has R&D office in the city and is funding research projects at the University of Waterloo
WATERLOO — The Chinese technology giant Huawei is reassuring its Canadian research partners, including the University of Waterloo, following the arrest of its chief financial officer in Vancouver.
“We remain committed to our partnership with the University of Waterloo, and Huawei Canada is in regular contact with the university to ensure any questions they may have are being addressed,” company spokesperson Scott Bradley said Monday.
Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1 as she was transferring between flights. Authorities in the United States asked Canada to arrest Wanzhou and they now want her deported to the U.S., saying she violated trade sanctions against Iran.
“The matter with Ms. Meng is not related to our Canadian research operations,” said Bradley.
Those operations are extensive.
In 2016, Huawei opened a research and development office in the David Johnston Research and Technology Park in Waterloo. Thirty employees work in the
office and there are plans to hire another 20. The Chinese telecom giant is also funding several research projects at the UW.
Much of Huawei’s research in Waterloo is focused on cloud computing, data analytics, enterprise applications and mobile security for the next generation of wireless networks known as 5G. The research and development office in Waterloo works on enterprise applications for 5G networks.
When UW president Feridun Hamdullahpur visited Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen, China in 2016, he signed a strategic research partnership with the company. That agreement saw Huawei put $3 million into university research projects related to cloud computing, data management and data analytics.
Huawei struck similar agreements with other Canadian universities, investing up to $50 million in research projects at the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, McGill University and Waterloo, among others.
The company funds a math scholarship at UW and an engineering-science entrance award. Huawei also is a sponsor of the Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute that was launched at UW last April.
“We have not been advised of any impact recent news will have on partnerships between the company, and the numerous universities in Canada it has relationships with,” UW spokesperson Matthew Grant said Monday.
In 2016, Huawei announced it was spending $303 million on research projects in Ontario related to 5G networks. That’s when it opened the office in the research and technology park on UW’s north campus. The company employs more than 500 additional employees at research facilities in Markham and Ottawa.
According to research firm IDC, Huawei has the second largest share of the global market for smartphones, at 15.8 per cent, behind Samsung at 20.9 per cent and ahead of Apple at 12.1 per cent.
The U.S., Australia and New Zealand have banned Huawei hardware from their 5G networks, fearing the technology will be used by China to spy on communications. So far Canada has resisted calls to follow suit.
The company has come under scrutiny for developing advanced surveillance technologies that are being field tested in China’s Xinjiang region, home to the Uygur Muslim minority group, which has long complained of oppression. These surveillance and population control technologies use facial recognition, digital monitoring and artificial intelligence.