Huawei Employees Worked With China Military on Research Projects: Bloomberg

Huawei Employees Worked With China Military on Research Projects: Bloomberg
A Huawei company logo at the Shenzhen International Airport in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China on June 17, 2019. (Aly Song/Reuters)
Reuters
6/27/2019
Updated:
6/27/2019

Huawei Technologies employees worked on at least 10 research projects with Chinese armed forces personnel over the past decade, Bloomberg reported on June 27.

Huawei workers teamed up with members of various organs of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in projects spanning artificial intelligence to radio communications, Bloomberg said.

Huawei denies collaborating with the military. “Huawei is not aware of its employees publishing research papers in their individual capacity,” Huawei spokesman Joe Kelly told Reuters.

The research projects are part of a few publicly disclosed studies, Bloomberg said, adding it culled the papers from published periodicals and online research databases used mainly by Chinese academics and industry specialists.

China’s defense ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang told Reuters the ministry does not comment on academic research.

Huawei has come under mounting scrutiny for over a year, led by U.S. allegations that “back doors” in its routers, switches and other gear could allow China to spy on U.S. communications.

The U.S. government last month effectively banned its agencies from buying Huawei telecommunications equipment and put severe restrictions on U.S. firms doing business with Huawei.