China’s Huawei Technologies has revamped its research center in Singapore as the telecom equipment giant hopes to win more enterprise clients in Southeast Asia, diversifying its digital business into everything from cloud computing and smart cities to AI.
With access to its 100,000 research engineers globally, companies can consult, test, and verify Huawei’s products in actual network environments to digitize their businesses, including factories and offices. Huawei will support launching these new technologies in its clients’ regional markets.
The revamp, in which Huawei said it had invested around USD 20 million, comes as the Chinese telecom giant sharpens its focus on cloud services and digital infrastructure following a U.S. crackdown that hindered its once dominant consumer electronics business.
“Entering the new phase, [the new lab] is set to foster a sustainable and thriving ecosystem with our partners throughout the region,” Nicholas Ma, Huawei’s president of the Asia Pacific enterprise business group, said at the launch event on Friday.
Located inside Huawei’s office at the Changi Business Park in the eastern part of Singapore, the latest Asia Pacific OpenLab3.0 allows companies to trial various networks, wireless infrastructure, and cloud services without setting up their own data centers.
Originally launched in 2016, Huawei said it had upgraded the site’s backend data centers and network capabilities to cater to wider industries in the region, including public service, finance, transportation, and energy.
Globally, Huawei has 14 such industry collaboration labs, with another regional site in Thailand. Through the Singapore lab, Huawei said it has worked with over 100 partners in both private and public sectors in the region. In November, for example, Union Bank of the Philippines partnered with Huawei to launch its new smart office campus.
As part of the latest upgrade, Huawei on Friday also set up a new lab for its growing cloud computing business in the region, where clients can seek consultation and technical support remotely, even from overseas.
“We will be equipping the lab with our latest connectivity technologies,” said Foo Fang Yong, CEO of Huawei International. Businesses can test Huawei’s high-speed 5G communications, as well as its next-generation Wi-Fi 7 network, which the company touts as the world’s first technology of its kind.
Huawei entered the city-state in 2001, its first market in Southeast Asia. Since then, the company has been rapidly expanding its footprint in the region, expanding its share in cloud computing and data center businesses in Thailand and most recently in Indonesia last year.