Huawei is looking at shifting all the cash it is spending in the US to the UK.
The announcement follows the National Cyber Security Centre saying the vendor will not be treated as harshly as it was in the US.
The NCSC said it it believed it could mitigate any security concerns related to China, although the final decision as to whether Huawei will be allowed to work on the UK’s 5G network will be made by the government.
CEO Ren Zhengfei told the BBC, Ren brushed off pressure being applied by the US, claiming Huawei’s tech is too “advanced” to be ignored by “the world”.
Ren said: “We will continue to invest in the UK. We still trust in the UK. If the US doesn’t trust us, then we will shift our investment from the US to the UK on an even bigger scale.”
Huawei claimed that it has become “one of the largest inward investors” in the UK since launching here 18 years ago.
It claims to employee 1,500 people in the UK directly, while supporting a further 7,500 through its supply chain.
Huawei said it had invested £2 billion in the UK by the end of 2017, with plans to splash out a further £3 billion over the next five years.
The vendor pointed out that it has been funding a security centre in the UK that oversees its tech in hope of proving its integrity, claiming that “no other technology supplier is open to this degree of independent scrutiny”.
