Apple is Huawei's teacher, Ren Zhengfei's latest statement: US sanctions are both pressure and motivation
On September 19th, the reporter noticed that on the official website of the Beijing headquarters of the International College Student Programming Competition (ICPC), Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei and students from the ICPC Foundation, coaches, and gold medal winners had their conversation minutes released on August 21st and 26th.
Ren Zhengfei mentioned that we are about to enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and the foundation is big computing power. Today's young people may become the leaders of the Fourth Industrial Revolution tomorrow. The purpose of Huawei's support for the competition is to build a stage for young people to ignite their lives.
When asked if he was a "fruit fan", Ren Zhengfei replied, "Having a teacher is very happy, with opportunities to learn and make comparisons. If I were a fruit fan from these perspectives, it wouldn't be too much."
Ren Zhengfei also mentioned US sanctions, stating that sanctions are both pressure and motivation for Huawei. Before the crackdown, Huawei built its basic platform in the US, but after the US crackdown, Huawei was forced to switch to another platform, which was difficult. He said that after four years of hard work and the hard work of 200000 employees, Huawei has basically established its own platform. In the future, it may not operate on the same basis as the US platform, but connectivity is certain.
He also talked about why Huawei values the research of basic theoretical science, because in today's era, the boundary between science and technology is getting closer, and the time for science to be transformed into technology is getting shorter. If we wait for universities to fully understand the theory before we proceed with technological development, we will no longer have a first mover advantage and competitiveness. So Huawei itself has also begun to attach importance to basic theoretical research, investing approximately 3-5 billion US dollars annually for basic theoretical research. Huawei and universities work hand in hand, embedded in each other, to jointly study these seemingly useless sciences.
On site Q&A session:
Russian ICPC coach: I have been coaching the ICPC championship team for 10 years. Many companies support talent development, but they may not be willing to support large-scale competitions such as ICPC because they are not directly related to the business. Since Huawei established a resource center locally to support competitions, everything has undergone significant changes. I found that Huawei is not only recruiting talent, but also helping local communities develop talent. We have received strong support from the competition department, and 25 members of my champion team have joined various departments of Huawei. I want to ask, why does Huawei feel that supporting competition is so important for business development, or is it something that must be done?
Ren Zhengfei: Russia is a great country. Yekaterina introduced Western painting, music, philosophy... At the same time, the Qing Dynasty of China followed a path of seclusion, so Russia achieved industrialization earlier than China. On this basis, basic theoretical research received attention from the former Soviet Union and achieved great success, such as Rukovsky, Mendeleev, Romonosov, Popov, etc. Recently, for example, in the 1960s in the former Soviet Union, a scientist named Peter Ufimchev was the first to discover the radio reflection function of diamond sections. However, after studying for half a day, the former Soviet Union found this thing useless. Why? Because it was not feasible and meaningless, the mathematician's paper was approved for public publication. But after seeing it, Americans found it a treasure and spent 20 years making the F22 stealth plane.
Although Huawei is a commercial company, it is not a profit driven company. For example, our sponsorship of competitions is sincere, not about acquiring talent. In the future, we will also increase sponsorship of competition activities. Just now I had coffee with Chairman Bill, and we talked about hoping that through you, we can bring competitions in information, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, neural networks... to China. It's not related to us, we can all provide support. As Chairman Bill said, science and technology should be used to create more social wealth, eliminate poverty, and pursue the path of common prosperity.
SunTeck: First of all, thank you for Huawei's strong support in training students and participating in competitions. Secondly, I would like to introduce two other competition organizations: IOI, which is a downstream partner of ICPC, mainly to discover and cultivate talents. IOI has encountered some problems, with over 90 countries joining, but many countries such as Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, and Myanmar still not joining. These countries require our support, which is consistent with Huawei's vision of spreading information technology and connecting the world. Countries that have already joined IOI also face some problems, such as not having enough resources to train students and rarely winning awards, thus not having the opportunity to participate in ICPC. We hope Huawei can help IOI's development. The other one is EGOI, specifically designed for women, which is a great trend. Among today's 58 people, there is only one female, accounting for less than 2%. Regarding how to achieve gender balance in competitions, we hope Huawei can support us.
Ren Zhengfei: When Singapore was founded, Lee Kuan Yew established two most important policies. Firstly, he established that the national language was English, which connected a very large world; The other language is Chinese, to be precise, it is Mandarin and Simplified Chinese, which connects the two great worlds together. Today we are conducting a computer competition to unify the language of computers, unify the standards of the era of high computing power, and eliminate barriers and barriers between us through drinking coffee and communicating with each other.
This time we have connected the 25 participating countries, and a single spark can start a prairie fire and ignite the great fire in your country. Welcome coaches and young people to come to China at any time. You have added many communication methods for our colleagues and friends, so you can stay in touch and keep in touch. Today, you young people are our permanent companions. In addition to ICPC, we also need to support IOI, as well as competitions in disciplines such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and neural networks, to promote talent cultivation in basic science.
Meza: I am very proud because a Latin American athlete won this championship, and of course, we also have many outstanding students. Perhaps due to restrictions in the Americas, there are not many job opportunities at Huawei in Latin America. Does Huawei welcome Latin American talents to come for internships, such as in China, where there may be some systematic support?
Ren Zhengfei: We welcome outstanding talents from both Latin America and other countries to come to Huawei. We have an online platform called "Huang Danian Tea Think House", where students can contact relevant experts for communication. If the experts think you should come to China for face-to-face internships, they are all welcome. To give a simple example, who invented the 5G that the United States exerted all its national efforts to combat? Who invented the Polar code? Professor Arikan from Türkiye. He published a mathematical paper more than a decade ago, and two weeks after its publication, we discovered it. We organized thousands of scientists and experts to study, analyze, and engineer it, which led to the creation of today's world leading 5G. So, where is the end of the world without fragrant grass? There are excellent talents everywhere, most likely in the United States. No one knows where geniuses come from. Welcome to communicate with our experts online.
Professor at Peking University and Director of the ICPC East Asia Competition: For the past decade or so, it has been sponsored by American companies, but since Huawei started sponsoring global events a few years ago, Chinese companies have finally come forward to sponsor global educational activities. We are very proud. May I ask what your expectations are for higher education?
Ren Zhengfei: Not only do we need to continue funding activities, but I also believe that the funding is not enough and needs to be further strengthened.
Higher education should be taught according to individual needs, rather than emphasizing uniform textbooks; The slogan "Don't lose at the starting line" in primary and secondary education is not correct in my opinion, and excellent students cannot wait to run. China's education must be revitalized. Over the years, Huawei has composed of over 7000 high nosed foreign scientists and experts, over 13800 international students, most of whom are PhDs, and over 100000 outstanding students from China to form a research and development team, which has turned the tide. If the United States closes some disciplines in the future and does not allow Chinese students to study abroad, then we can only obtain talent from Chinese universities, and universities cannot be homogenized.
French athlete: There is a scientific research called useless research, which means that in the short term, it is not yet known where it will be applied. This type of research may be mainly conducted by universities rather than companies, but in the long run, it is actually very important. What is Huawei's view on such useless research? Will Huawei invest in such research?
Ren Zhengfei: What is science? Unknown is called science. Now everyone knows that the United States has a relatively high degree of liberalization in scientific research. Before World War II, basic research in the United States was very weak, relying mainly on European theories to support its industry, aviation, aerospace... Just like China's dependence on the West today, a large number of theorems, laws, formulas, inventions... all came from Europe. After the end of World War II, the United States found itself running behind Europe because it had little basic theoretical accumulation. American scientist Vanneval Bush wrote a book called "Science: Endless Frontiers", proposing that the United States should study seemingly useless and distant things by studying many "useless" sciences. Basic science in the United States flourished after World War II. After the 1990s, a professor named Stokes from Princeton University in the United States wrote a book called "Basic Science and Technological Innovation: The Pasteur Quadrant", which discusses how to use applications to drive scientific exploration and gather "useless" science into useful ones. In this digital age, the United States has dominated the world, and we have developed by riding the digital train of the times.
In today's era, the boundary between science and technology is getting closer and closer, and the time for science to be transformed into technology is getting shorter and shorter. If we wait until universities fully understand the theory before proceeding with technological development, we will no longer have a first mover advantage and no competitiveness. So we have also begun to attach importance to basic theoretical research ourselves, investing approximately 3-5 billion US dollars annually for basic theoretical research. We work hand in hand with universities, embedded in each other, to study these seemingly useless sciences.
Brazilian player: Due to US sanctions, Huawei has encountered many difficulties in recent years. I would like to know how Huawei has responded and whether it is ready to sustainably develop in the international market? And whether to restore relations with the United States, or can it continue to develop without restoring relations with the United States?
Ren Zhengfei: US sanctions are indeed pressure for us, but pressure is also a driving force. Before the crackdown, we built the basic platform in the United States. After the US crackdown, we were forced to switch to another platform, which was difficult. After four years of hard work and the hard work of 200000 employees, we have basically established our own platform. In the future, we may not operate on the same basis as the platforms in the United States, but connectivity is certain.
Bangladeshi contestant: Does this ICPC contestant have a chance to join Huawei? What are the future career development opportunities?
Ren Zhengfei: Our competition is entirely academic and has no direct relationship with joining Huawei. If you are interested in joining Huawei, you can apply to our local human resources department. We welcome outstanding talents from all over the world to join Huawei. Bangladesh has a population of nearly 200 million, and the West once predicted that Bangladesh would be the next emerging industrial country. Now that Bangladesh has outstanding talents like you, it will gradually guide the country towards faster development. But what is the foundation for faster development? It's speed. I hope you can take the lead in bringing what you have learned back to Bangladesh and accelerating the country's development to a new level.
ICPC Mexico&Central America Regional Director: Some technology companies such as Oracle and Cisco have set up research and development centers in Mexico. May I ask if Huawei plans to set up research and development institutions in Mexico or Latin America in the future?
Ren Zhengfei: Regarding the layout of overseas research and development, we need to ask the director of our 2012 laboratory, and we will take your feedback back. Mexico has a brilliant civilization, and modern people have not fully understood the Mayan culture to this day. The origin of Mexican civilization dates back a long time, and we believe that this civilization can be found in countries around the world. We may also consider that, but it still depends on the specific deployment of the 2012 laboratory. Previously, our deployment was centered around the United States and distributed around the world. Later, when the United States attacked us, we shifted our focus to Europe and gradually to Eurasia, resulting in fewer visits to Latin America. Latin America is still subject to US regulation, and we need to further evaluate the status of the regulation.
Russian player: Huawei has so many people, how to achieve efficient operation through management?
Ren Zhengfei: At the beginning of founding the company, I visited the United States to understand their management with IBM as the main body. Firstly, IBM's enterprise goal management is to serve customers, and everything should be customer-centric. This way, the enterprise has a sense of overall direction, which brings employees together. Secondly, learning about IBM's implementation of IPD is about how to incorporate market and service representatives into research and development. IPD is a forward-looking leadership organization that guides research and development forward. Next, I will learn IFS, ISC finance, and supply chain management from IBM. In this way, the process system becomes clear. The most important issue is distribution, and we will study where Huawei's wealth is and how it is distributed. We believe that wealth is in the minds of employees, and when you weigh your head, you will be given a share of it. Our distribution method divides labor into three parts and capital into one.
Icelandic player: I don't know if it's true or false. I heard before that you are a fruit fan yourself?
Ren Zhengfei: Because my daughter is studying in the United States, it would be inconvenient for her to attend classes without apples. Let's not be exclusive, we often explore why Apple's products are done well, and we can also see the gap between us and Apple. Having a teacher is very happy, with opportunities for learning and comparison. If I were a fruit fan from these perspectives, it wouldn't be too much.
