by
N. Peter Kramer
The research activities in the new R&D site in the south of France, in Sophia Antipolis (departement Alpes Maritimes) will focus on chipset design and embedded electronics and will provide Huawei with the opportunity to highlight the cutting-edge work carried out by its researchers in France. The decision to open this new R&D site in France was prompted by the fertile IT ecosystem of the Sophia Antipolis hub, as well as the availability of skilled engineers in the area, who are world-renowned for their know-how in the fields of electronic devices and software.
Huawei has been present in France since 2003. The country plays an important role in Huawei’s European ecosystem. In late 2013, Huawei CEO and founder Ren Zhengfei announced plans to recruit 170 researchers in France by 2017.Huawei has already hired 20 engineers for the new Sophia Antipolis site, most of whom are former researchers of Texas Instruments. The company plans to hire another 10 engineers to reach a staff of 30 by the end of the year.
“We are very proud of this R&D site, which represents perfectly what France can provide in terms of skills on the global IT market,” said Mr Song Kai, CEO of Huawei France. “This inauguration is a symbolic step for Huawei in France, a sign of its increasing collaboration with the French digital ecosystem. Huawei has great ambitions for the coming months and Sophia Antipolis is only the first step in its French R&D development strategy.” Areas of work of the new R&D hub will include improving the quality of smartphone cameras; developing the company’s expertise in the fields of microelectronics and software and setting up a group of experts to build the best Image Signal Processor (ISP) to help Huawei become the best smartphone provider in the market by improving the distribution model through algorithms, RTL codes, etc. Huawei will integrate a chipset developed by its engineers in Sophia Antipolis in its terminals by 2015
The opening of the site marks a further step in Huawei’s European strategy which places a key focus on R&D investment. It follows the recent announcement of a new innovation center in Waldorf, Germany.
New innovation center in Walldorf, Germany: Huawei and SAP cooperation
Huawei announced recently the opening of its Huawei Innovation Center at the ‘Partner-Port Walldorf, located at SAP’s headquarters. The center will help facilitate performance and standards testing, highlight exhibits of products and solutions, and offer training certification. It will also serve as an incubator for the development of innovative partner and customer solutions.
The Huawei Innovation Center was launched at ‘Huawei Day’ held at SAP’s headquarters in July. The center will support the joint customers of SAP and Huawei around the world, with a primary focus on Europe and Germany. Huawei hopes to expand it to become its largest joint partner innovation center within five years.
Alex Altzenberger, SAP’s chief of staff, said: ‘Huawei and SAP share strong engineering cultures and a strong customer focus’. Kevin Tao. President Huawei Western Europe expressed that ‘although SAP and Huawei come from different worlds, we share a complementary vison for the future’. The two companies have worked together since July 2012, in areas including enterprise applications, business analytics, mobility, cloud computing, and data center technology.
Huawei in Europe
Huawei currently has over 7700 staff based in Europe, of whom 850 are working in R&D. And runs 17 R&D sites in eight European countries: Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Sweden and the UK. It operates numerous joint innovation centers in partnership with telecom and ICT partners. Further information is available at www.huawei.eu
This latest addition to Huawei’s European R&D family will bring the total number of facilities in the EU to 17 sites located in eight countries – Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and the UK.
Further information is available at www.huawei.eu
