Huawei turns to the Middle East to promote 5G amid colder reception in Europe - South China Morning Post

Chinese telecommunications gear giant Huawei Technologies is turning to the Middle East to promote its advanced 5G technology as the US-sanctioned company faces increasing pressure in Europe.

At Huawei’s Global Mobile Broadband Forum in Dubai on Tuesday, the company’s rotating chairman Ken Hu Houkun said the firm is working on 5.5G technology with operators to meet demand for equipment that can deal with growing amounts of data.

The 5.5G technology, also known as “5G-Advanced”, has been hailed by the company as the next level of telecommunications technology with a tenfold increase in speed over existing networks.

“We need to keep innovating because technology is changing so fast, with large language models, ChatGPT and driverless cars,” Hu said in his keynote speech via a live video chat. “The demands are evolving every day, so our networks also need to evolve. And we, as an industry as a whole, need to get ready for the future.”

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It is the second time that Huawei has held its annual Global Mobile Broadband Forum in Dubai of the United Arab Emirates since the inaugural event in 2010. The move comes as the Chinese telecoms giant faces increased regulatory scrutiny in Europe on national security grounds.

On Monday, Huawei appealed Spanish government rules that might prevent the Shenzhen-based company from qualifying for state aid of more than €500 million (US$527 million) to develop 5G networks in rural areas of the country.

The Spanish rules specify that equipment, components and associated software in the critical elements of 5G networks “will not be acquired from suppliers that have been designated as high risk by Spain”. Huawei has filed an appeal, stating that the exclusion of certain suppliers would go against the law, is disproportionate and politically motivated.

The EU has also called for more member states to block Huawei from their 5G networks. In 2020, Brussels recommended that member states ban or restrict Huawei in their 5G telecoms networks, but only one third of EU countries have followed through, the EU’s internal market commissioner Thierry Breton told the Financial Times in June.

Meanwhile, the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have already banned Huawei from their 5G networks.

Trouble began for Huawei when the US added the company to a trade blacklist in 2019, citing national security risks, which prompted governments across Europe to conduct their own reviews of network security. Since then, the company has attempted to diversify and look to new sectors for growth, with the Middle East now seen as a key market.

In the Middle East, Huawei has signed up more than 200 government-related clients – over 30 from the financial services industry and over 150 internet firms as cloud service clients – according to company information.

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