Few technology companies have suffered as much as Huawei in recent years. The rivalry between China and the United States in the last decade culminated in 2018 with the prohibition by the then president of the United States, Donald Trump, to use equipment and technology from Huawei in bodies and institutions related to the Government.
It was just the tip of the iceberg of a conflict that would reach its peak in 2019, with the prohibition of any company in the United States from collaborating with Huawei in any way, which included companies such as Google, Qualcomm, Intel… The company China and the US cut relations.
Since then, the Asian multinational has been forced to seek and find its place in the world again. And it has done it in three different ways: focusing its efforts on the local market (where it has been growing), selling some important assets (such as Honor) and investing in much “friendlier” geographical areas, such as Asia and Europe.
This strategy includes his world tour “Huawei Connect 2022” which is held this week in Paris and is entitled “Unleash Digital”. The event, inaugurated by KenHu, rotating president of the Asian multinational, has clearly shown the company’s intentions towards the old continent: “Huawei will continue to work closely with our partners in Europe to support the region’s digital and ecological transition strategy” – he assured to add below – “We are committed to supporting Europe’s economic recovery, the success of its industry and enabling sustainable development.”
Unleash Digital and everything as a service
As a sign of this commitment to “old Europe”, Ken Hu explained that the company is working on the digital transformation of Europe with the construction of multiple Centers of Innovation and Experience, as well as OpenLabs, in cities such as Munich or Paris and He added that Huawei is also working with local partners to help cultivate digital talent in the region. The company has opened a number of ICT academies in Europe that focus on training students and professionals.
In the case of Spain, the Asian multinational announced a year ago the opening of a service and support center for Europe, a type of center that the company calls the Regional Service Center, with which it will offer technical support to the main telecommunications operators in a dozen countries. Among the announcements that the day leaves, the presentation of its competition for startups in Europe and a new contest for developers who want to develop the most innovative cloud applications.
What technologies are involved in this process? Of course, the usual suspects like the cloud (and here the interesting growth of Huawei Cloud around the world has been highlighted) but also the next generation of 5G (5.5G) networks, the industrial IoT and that trend of offering “everything as a service”. ”, from infrastructure to applications and that Huawei does not want to miss out on, whether in the form of supercomputing resources for the medical industry, or the virtualization in its cloud of all the IT resources that an average company may need.
Sustainability and the environment, two of the issues of greatest concern in Brussels, have also been present in the Chinese manager’s speech. And so it has been concerned with ensuring that they put all their technological capabilities at the service of their clients to “help them reduce their carbon footprint and achieve the objectives of the European Green Deal”, then remarking that until 2021, the company has helped reduce CO2 emissions in Europe by almost 24 million tons.
Whether the “love story” between Huawei and Europe becomes a golden idyll, however, will depend not only on the goodwill of European companies and authorities (something that does not seem to change in the short term), but also on American pressures in an increasingly volatile international context.
