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Ren Zhengfei rises above his company’s blacklisting in the US
Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei has indicated that he will not shy away from allowing US companies to license his firm’s 5G technology.
Reuters on Thursday quoted Ren as saying that he is not afraid of helping to create a major rival to Huawei by making its technology and expertise available to others, including in the area of chip design.
Indeed, the chief exec then told CNBC that he would be willing to offer an exclusive licence to a US company to enable it to compete at scale with Asian and European players.
The revelation comes amidst Huawei’s well-documented battle to do business in the US, where it is deemed a threat to national security. The firm remains on a government blacklist imposed by US president Donald Trump in May and there is little sign of tensions thawing.
Huawei recently presented its newest smartphone, the Mate 30, which runs on the open-source Android OS but does not come with Google’s mobile services. Meanwhile, a US government committee this week presented another bill designed to ease the financial burden on smaller mobile operators that are required to rip out Huawei network equipment as a result of the blacklisting.
It seems unlikely that Ren’s offer to license Huawei technology to the US will have any real impact on the Trump administration’s stance, but it is clear the Chinese company is keen to try.
