Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei makes rare appearance at Sichuan University in search for talent

The founder of the US-sanctioned telecoms giant told Sichuan University that Huawei is looking to ‘overcome its shortcomings’ in basic research

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Signage at a Huawei store in Shanghai on May 3, 2024. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 6:04pm, 10 Jun 2024Updated: 10:50am, 11 Jun 2024

Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies is planning to work closely with domestic universities to boost basic research and draw in fresh talent, founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei said during a visit to Sichuan University.

Ren visited the university on June 5 in southwestern China, where he said that US-sanctioned Huawei is working closely with universities worldwide on basic theoretical research to “overcome its shortcomings”, according to a Sichuan University blog post last week.

Huawei hopes to deepen its cooperation with the public university, one of the oldest in China, as it “highly values” the role that talent plays in technological innovation, the 79-year-old entrepreneur said, according to the post.

He added that the main goal is to contribute to technological breakthroughs in key fields and on critical issues facing the industry.

Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei in an interview in Taiyuan, northern Shanxi province, on February 9, 2021. Photo: Xinhua

Huawei’s quest for talent has long been a top priority for Ren, whose company has been grappling with escalating export restrictions since Washington blacklisted the Shenzhen-based tech giant in 2019. In a speech last July, the founder said that Huawei will “save talent, not US dollars”.

In the months following its blacklisting, Ren initiated a recruitment programme called “Top Minds” – later dubbed “Genius Youth” – which gave priority to job applicants who were winners of top research honours or produced research with “tangible and impactful results”, according to an advertisement Huawei posted on the microblogging site Weibo at the time.