Huawei gets planning approval for US$1.2 billion UK R&D site
- The research and development site, which Huawei acquired in 2018, will become its international headquarters for optoelectronics
- Huawei’s future in Britain is in question after the US ratcheted up pressure on its allies to break ties with the Chinese telecoms gear supplier
Huawei Technologies has received approval to break ground on a 1 billion pound (US$1.2 billion) research and development site near Cambridge in the east of England, even as the company’s future in the country hangs in the balance.
It will become Huawei’s international headquarters for optoelectronics, a branch of fibre-optic broadband technology, said company vice-president Victor Zhang on a media call.
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Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre is expected to issue a reviewed decision on Huawei’s role in the country’s telecoms networks.
The council vote on Thursday was purely on planning policy and did not take into account politics or security. To veto the investment on those grounds would require a decision by central government.
Zhang said plans for the site were put in motion in 2017.
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“Huawei could not have predicted the timing of today’s approval,” he said.
Still, former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith, one of the British lawmakers pushing for Huawei to be banned entirely from the country, criticised the council’s move.
“It is a naive and stupid decision, because it runs in the face of all of the evidence of the misbehaviour by Huawei and the Chinese government,” he said via phone. “Huawei is an untrusted vendor and it’s clear South Cambridgeshire council have gone for the money.”