The British Financial Times reported that Huawei plans to build a 400-person chip research and development plant in a suburb of Cambridge, England, and plans to start production in 2021.
According to the report, the plant will be located in the heart of the UK’s silicon chip industry, only 15 minutes from the headquarters of Arm Holdings, the UK’s largest chip design company. Huawei plans to use its plant to develop chips for broadband networks.
The U.S. has repeatedly warned that the Chinese government can use Huawei’s equipment for espionage and has urged allies not to use Huawei products in the construction of 5G networks.
The report said that, in order to win the support of local people, when Huawei announced the plan at a local junior high school last week, Huawei executives urged local residents to raise their concerns. They also claimed that Huawei could fund new medical centers or build bus stations locally.
A local resident told the Financial Times that the site that Huawei chose is an ideal location to monitor the British government. However, most locals have a positive attitude toward Huawei’s construction.
According to a report in the Financial Times, Huawei has thousands of employees in the UK, including about 120 in Cambridge. Also Huawei didn’t deny that it selected Cambridge as the chip factory site with the intention to gain access to Cambridge graduates.
Source: Voice of America, May 6, 2019
https://www.voachinese.com/a/huawei-to-build-chip-plant-in-cambridge/4903659.html