Huawei to invest US$100 billion in network reconstruction in the next five years

Since the US ban was issued, Huawei's communication with the outside world has become more open and transparent. After intensive media exchanges, at 2 pm on June 17, Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei had a 100-minute exchange and conversation in Shenzhen with two of the three major thinkers of the digital age, George Gilder, a famous Forbes contributor, and Nicholas Negroponte, a columnist for the US Wired magazine.

How powerful are the two American celebrities in the conversation? Take a quick look at their resumes:

Negroponte founded the MIT Media Lab, wrote the best-selling book Being Digital, and is also known as a "genius investor". He was Zhang Chaoyang's teacher when he was studying in the United States. "Computers are no longer just about computing, they will determine our survival." is one of his famous quotes.

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Gilder is an American investor, writer, economist, and a passionate propagator of technology and the Internet. Gilder's Law, named after him, is the most famous, also known as the winner's waste law: the most successful business model is that the lowest-priced resources will be consumed as much as possible to preserve the most expensive resources. In the era of steam engines, because the cost of steam engines was lower than that of traditional transportation tools such as horses, smart businessmen began to use steam engines. Today, the cheapest resources are computers and Internet broadband resources.

Image from: Pear Video

They have made some very impressive predictions about the digital world and future technology.

For example, Negroponte predicted in the 1980s that by using radio waves instead of wires or optical fibers, wired technologies such as telephones would become wireless, and wireless technologies such as television would become wired. Gilder predicted that the bandwidth of backbone networks would double every six months over the next 25 years, a growth rate three times faster than the CPU growth predicted by Moore's Law. When bandwidth becomes abundant enough, the cost of Internet access will also decrease.

From left: CGTN host Tian Wei, Forbes contributor George Gilder, Wired magazine columnist Nicholas Negroponte, Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei, and Huawei Public and Government Affairs President Catherine Chen

The following is the key points of Ren Zhengfei's speech, compiled by Tencent Technology based on CCTV, China Business Network, Beijing News and other media:

The setbacks we are facing now are not caused by the intentions of American companies.

American companies are morally conscientious and are very good. In the past 30 years, we have developed without the support and help of all the advanced and developed companies in the world. So the setbacks we are facing now are not caused by their own intentions, but by the different views of some politicians on things.

I didn't expect the United States to attack us so extensively, but it can't hinder our progress.

Our company once realized that when our company was growing very fast and at a high level, we would have competition in the market, conflicts and other things. But we did not expect that the United States would be so determined and unwavering in its strategic fight against Huawei. At the same time, we did not expect that the United States would attack us in such a wide range, not only to prevent us from supplying parts, but also to prevent us from participating in many international organizations, strengthening cooperation with universities, and privately owning anything with American components. We could not even provide the United States with network links with these components. But we believe that these things will not hinder our progress.

The company will reduce production in the next two years and will regain its vitality in 2021

Our previous thoughts did not realize how serious it was. We did make some preparations, just like a rotten plane, we protected the heart and the fuel tank, but did not protect other minor parts. So our company will reduce production in the next two years, and we estimate that it will drop by 30 billion US dollars, so that sales revenue will be around 100 billion US dollars this year and next year. In 2021, we can regain vitality and provide services to the people and society again. Because we have to switch many versions in the past two years, so many version switches take time, and they need a period of running-in and a period of testing. When we take this step, we have become stronger.

Huawei has absolutely no backdoors

Over the past 30 years, 170 countries have proven that Huawei's networks are secure. Huawei's terminals can be compared to faucets and the connected networks to pipes. Whether water or oil flows through them is not the responsibility of the pipeline companies, but the responsibility of operators and content providers.

Does our company have any backdoors? Absolutely no backdoors. We are willing to sign a no-backdoor agreement with countries around the world. But why can't we sign it? Because these countries require all network equipment suppliers to sign this no-backdoor agreement, so it is difficult to pass.

After Huawei signs a contract with a country, it shows the template to everyone, saying, "Huawei dares to sign the contract, guarantees that there is no backdoor, and dares to take this responsibility.

Huawei's sales revenue will remain at $100 billion in the next two years

Huawei's sales revenue in the next two years will be around US$100 billion. In 2021, we can regain our vitality and provide services to human society again.

We are strong, we are the invincible bird

When we were weak, we strengthened our cooperation with American companies. Now that we are stronger, why don't we cooperate with American companies? I am not afraid to use American parts, American elements, or cooperate with anyone in the United States.

But there are also some companies that are not as strong as us, and they may be very cautious in using American elements and components, which will cause certain damage to the US economy. But we will not, because we are very strong and we are an invincible bird.

Investing $100 billion in five years to restructure the network

We will invest 100 billion US dollars in five years to restructure the network architecture, making it simpler, faster, more secure, and more reliable.

There will be ups and downs in the process of globalization. Don't take extreme measures to solve them.

The most important purpose of technology is to create wealth and lift more people out of poverty. “It is impossible for each country to develop in isolation in the information society.

In the information society, it is not realistic for a country to accomplish something alone, so the international community must move towards open cooperation. Only open cooperation can keep up with the needs of human civilization and enable more people to enjoy the benefits brought by new technologies at a lower cost.

The West was the first to propose economic globalization. This slogan is very correct, but there will be waves in the process of globalization. "When these waves appear, we must treat them correctly and use various rules to regulate and resolve them, rather than taking an extreme approach."

China's engineering creativity is strong, but its theoretical creativity is weak

The creation of human society is divided into theoretical creation, engineering creation and market demand creation. China is strong in engineering creativity, but weak in theoretical creativity. "We should still learn from the West in basic theoretical research. The West has gone through hundreds of years, such as the invention of calculus and many basic principles. I think the West has made great contributions in this regard."

Huawei's contribution to human society in terms of inventions is still small, but Huawei has played a role in engineering capabilities. We now support 300 universities and more than 900 research institutes outside, and we are also trying to make some contributions to theoretical innovation in the future. We haven't done so yet, but we will not shrink because of certain setbacks.

Artificial intelligence will be the biggest driving force for society in the next 20 to 30 years

The greatest driving force of society in the next 20 to 30 years will be artificial intelligence. The future society will become more and more complex, and individual intelligence cannot control it. Some deterministic jobs will be replaced by artificial intelligence, and artificial intelligence will create huge wealth for mankind. We must be tolerant of innovation and not nitpick, so as to usher in a great society in the future.

Huawei will not split and sell its submarine cables because they are not closely related to its main business

Huawei wanted to sell its submarine cable business a long time ago. It had sold part of this business before. The sale was not because of the blow, but because it was not very relevant to the main business. Huawei will not split up in the future, nor will it lay off employees on a large scale, but business integration has been going on. The most typical example was the layoff of the software department two years ago, which had about 10,000 to 20,000 employees, but they went to the main battlefield of Huawei's terminal and cloud computing business to get promoted and make money.

Huawei's patents will not be weaponized and the patent fees collected will not be as high as Qualcomm's

Huawei's intellectual property will not be weaponized, but mutual cross-licensing is necessary. Many companies in the world pay Huawei a lot of patent fees every year. Because of confidentiality agreements, we cannot disclose it. There are also many companies that Huawei does not ask for money because they are too busy. They ask for some money in their free time, but not necessarily as much as Qualcomm.