Take a peek inside the offices of phone giant Huawei, which the US says is helping China’s spies
Huawei is China’s most valuable technology brand, and sells more telecommunications equipment than any other company in the world, with annual revenue topping Sh 10 trillion ($100 billion).
Headquartered in the southern city of Shenzhen – considered China’s Silicon Valley – Huawei has more than 180,000 employees worldwide, with nearly half of them engaged in research and development.
In 2018, the company overtook Apple as the second largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world behind Samsung, a milestone that has made Huawei a source of national pride in China.
While commercially successful and a dominant player in 5G, Huawei has faced political headwinds and allegations that its equipment includes so-called “backdoors”, which the US government perceives as a national security threat.
US authorities are also seeking the extradition of Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer, Meng Wanzhou, to stand trial in the US on fraud charges. Meng is currently under house arrest in Canada, though Huawei maintains the US case against her is purely political.
Despite the US campaign against the company, Huawei is determined to lead the global charge toward adopting 5G wireless networks.
It has hired experts from foreign rivals, and invested heavily in Research and Development to patent key technologies to boost Chinese influence.
This series of photos offers a rare glimpse inside Huawei’s Bantian campus in Shenzhen, China, and its new sprawling “Ox Horn” Research and Development campus in Dongguan.
