Huawei denies conducting investigations with Chinese army

Huawei has denied having any joint research projects with the Chinese military. Several of these studies came out on Thursday, including one published last month.

Huawei CEO Song Liuping says in response to a Bloomberg article that the company is not aware of the investigations contained in the article. “Huawei does not supply modified products to the military and does not conduct research for them. We are not aware of the papers that some of the staff have published. We have no such joint research projects.”

The response is in line with previous statements from Huawei. The company has consistently denied allegations that it is cooperating with the Chinese government. It has also previously said that the military and Huawei are not cooperating, despite the Huawei founder making a career in the military.

Bloomberg pointed to several investigations in the article, one of the authors being from Huawei, while others are from the Chinese military. The most recent of these was about recognizing emotions in videos. The oldest is from 2006. A Chinese scientist says in the article by Bloomberg that employees of companies sometimes do research on their own and only add the name of their employer when published, even without the employer’s knowledge.

The relationship between Huawei and the Chinese military is a precarious subject, as the Chinese maker of smartphones and networking equipment has been the subject of spying allegations for some time. No evidence has yet been shown for those allegations, but the US government has now blacklisted Huawei, preventing US companies from trading with Huawei. As a result, Google withdrew its Android license, Microsoft can no longer supply Windows for new Huawei laptops, and it is not possible for Huawei to obtain parts and technology from the US, including licensing ARM microarchitectures for its socs.