Chinese tech giant Huawei is secretly funding research in America despite being blacklisted. . The cutting-edge research takes place at universities, including Harvard, and the money is provided through an independent research foundation based in Washington along with a competition for scientists.
Bloomberg noted that Huawei was the sole backer of a research competition that has awarded millions of dollars since 2022 and attracted hundreds of proposals from scientists. Some of these scientists work at top U.S. universities that have banned researchers from working with the company.
What’s the big deal? There are fears that this research could lead to innovations that could give China an edge in both defense contracts and commercial interests, said Kevin Wolf, a partner at business-focused law firm Akin, which specializes in export controls. Optica, the foundation behind all of this, posted online that it is also interested in “highly sensitive optical sensors and detectors,” among other research categories.
“It looks bad for a prestigious research foundation to anonymously accept money from a Chinese company that raises so many national security concerns for the U.S. government,” said James Mulvenon, a defense contractor who studies research security issues and is a co-author several books on the subject of industrial espionage.
It is worth noting that this money smuggling operation does not appear to be illegal, as research results intended for publication do not fall within the scope of the ban. Huawei runs similar competitions in other parts of the world, but openly. Participants in the US-based research competition didn’t even know Huawei was involved and believed the money would come from Optica. The competition awards $1 million a year and Optica gave no indication that Huawei provided the money.
A Huawei spokesman said this Bloomberg that the company and the Optica Foundation created the competition to support global research and promote academic communication, explaining that it remained anonymous so as not to be viewed as any type of advertising. Optica CEO Liz Rogan said in a statement that many foundation donors “prefer to remain anonymous” and that “this practice is not unusual.” She also said that the entire board knew about Huawei’s involvement and that everyone agreed with it. Bloomberg noted that the Huawei-backed competition was the only one on Optica’s website that did not list individual and corporate financial sponsors.
Huawei has been caught up in a web of US restrictions in recent years. , as the company was effectively banned. It all started in 2019 when President Trump posed “unacceptable” risks to national security. At the time, Trump said that “foreign adversaries” would ultimately lead to “potentially catastrophic consequences.” Wait, Trump used the words “potentially catastrophic impact”? Wild.
To this end, the company has been accused of numerous allegations of data theft, although there is no evidence of actual theft and the company denies the allegations. Huawei has also been accused of influencing an investigation, and documents appear to indicate this.
Some expected President Biden to reverse Trump’s executive order, but he went in the opposite direction. Not only does the order remain in place, but Biden is also blocked from obtaining an FCC license and operating in China’s high-tech industries. We’re not making friends with China any time soon, so Huawei will continue to be persona non grata on this side of the pond (the company is still doing booming business in Europe).