Huawei’s Ren Zhengfei ready to sell 5G tech to a Western buyer to help create rival, level playing field
- Comments from Ren come as the Chinese telecoms giant remains in the middle of US-China trade war and after it was put on a US trade blacklist in May
Ren Zhengfei, the billionaire founder and chief executive of Huawei Technologies, said he is ready to share its 5G technology with potential western buyers.
Ren said Huawei is willing to give buyers perpetual access to Huawei’s existing 5G patents, licences, code, technical blueprints and production know-how for a one-time fee, according to a two-hour interview with The Economist on September 10, the contents of which were confirmed by Huawei.
“The acquirer would be allowed to modify the source code, meaning that neither Huawei nor the Chinese government would even have hypothetical control of any telecoms infrastructure built using equipment produced by the new company,” said the article. “Huawei would likewise be free to develop its technology in whatever direction it pleases.”
The comments from Ren come as the Chinese telecoms giant remains mired in the middle of the US-China trade war and after it was put on a US trade blacklist in May on national security grounds. This has curtailed its attempts to roll out its next generation 5G network technology across the globe, with the US alleging that its equipment could be used for espionage activity by China’s intelligence agencies.
According to the interview, “Ren’s stated aim is to create a rival that could compete in 5G with Huawei (which would keep its existing contracts and continue to sell its own 5G kit). To his mind, this would help level the playing field at a time when many in the West have grown alarmed at the prospect of a Chinese company supplying the gear for most of the world’s new mobile-phone networks.”
“A balanced distribution of interests is conducive to Huawei’s survival,” Ren says in the interview.
Despite Washington’s recent decision to grant it a further reprieve to buy major components from American hi-tech companies, the company may delay overseas sales of its upcoming 5G Mate 30 series smartphones for lack of access to Google services under the US ban, according to a report by the Post last month, citing sources.
