[News] Huawei’s Ren Zhengfei Recognizes U.S. Tech’s Quality but Says Huawei Must Build Its Own

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According to a report from South China Morning Post, Huawei Technologies founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei stated that he admires the “openness and inclusivity” of the U.S. tech community. However, Huawei “had no choice” but to build its own tools because of U.S. sanctions.

The report quoted a transcript of Ren Zhengfei’s recent conversation with students and academics from the website of the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), stating Huawei should learn from the open culture of the U.S., which has enabled the country to achieve significant advancements in science and technology.

According to the report, Ren indicated that Huawei is “still struggling” and cannot confidently assert that it can survive, as the company is restricted from accessing better chips and technologies due to U.S. sanctions.

Used to call himself an “Apple fan,” Ren stated that “American technologies and tools are very good … [but] Huawei cannot use them; we had no choice but to create our own tools,” as the report noted.

According to the report, since May 2019, Huawei has been restricted from acquiring hardware, software, and services from U.S. manufacturers, as it was included in Washington’s trade blacklist. In 2020, the U.S. implemented stricter trade restrictions, restricting Huawei’s access to advanced semiconductors developed or produced using U.S. technology, regardless of where they were manufactured.

The report noted that Huawei has been a significant force in China’s self-sufficiency efforts, in areas from AI chips to operating systems. These include the launch of a series of smartphones featuring processors entirely manufactured in China, as well as the introduction of HarmonyOS Next, a domestic mobile operating system that no longer supports Android-based applications.

Regarding the AI trend, according to the report, Ren stated that the AI trend is unstoppable, and AI applications are creating the turning point of the times. According to another report from South China Morning Post, Huawei is said to initiate sampling of its latest AI accelerator, Ascend 910C, to Chinese customers, which is regarded as an upgraded version of the Ascend 910B and claimed to be comparable to NVIDIA’s H100 GPU, which cannot be directly sold in China.

The report noted that this is not the first time Ren has expressed admiration for the U.S.. He also encouraged employees to learn from the U.S. in terms of technology and science during an internal meeting in 2021.

Read more

• [News] Huawei Reportedly Begins Sampling of Ascend 910C to Rival NVIDIA
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(Photo credit: Huawei)