The Trump administration announced a
90-day reprieve on some sales to Huawei.
The government said that would apply to
components and technology needed to
support wireless networks in rural areas.
Ren gave no details but Huawei confirmed
in June it had cut 600 jobs at its Silicon
Valley research center in Santa Clara,
California, leaving about 250 employees.
A Huawei spokesman said the company had
no further comment.
“The research and development center
will move from the United States, and
Canada will be the center,” Ren said in a
video excerpt of the interview on the Globe
and Mail website. “According to the U.S. ban,
we couldn’t communicate with, call, email
or contact our own employees in the
United States.”
Huawei, China’s first global tech brand, is
scrambling to preserve its business in the
face of possible loss of access to U.S.
components, which threatens to damage its
smartphone business.
Huawei, headquartered in the southern city
of Shenzhen, also operates research and
development centers in Germany, India,
Sweden and Turkey.
In November, Huawei started selling a
folding smartphone, the Mate X, made without
U.S.-supplied processor chips or Google
apps. The company also has unveiled its own
smartphone operating system it says can
replace Google’s Android if necessary.