Chinese tech company Huawei has completed work on its $1.4bn research and development hub near Shanghai, the South China Morning Post reports.
Begun in 2020, the campus covers about 160ha, making it larger than Apple Park and Microsoft’s Redmond Campus combined.
The aim is to bring together all of Huawei’s research workers with the aim of concentrating their efforts.
It consists of 104 laboratories, offices and amenities, interconnected by its own rail network. The amenities include no fewer than 104 cafés, which Huawei founder and chief executive Ren Zhengfei hopes will lure foreign scientists to relocate.
Speaking to staff in 2021, he said the company aimed to “create an atmosphere suitable for foreign scientists to work and live in”, and added that the Yangtze Delta was “a beautiful environment, suitable for foreigners”.
At present, only about 800 non-Chinese scientists work for the company. Their numbers will not be swelled by US citizens, however, as they require a licence from Washington to work for Huawei.
The research complex is located in Jinze, a town in the Qingpu district of Shanghai’s vast western suburbs. These are dotted by lakes, and the centre is to be called the Lianqiu Lake R&D Centre.
More than 30,000 scientists and engineers are expected to populate the campus, where they will work on semiconductors, 5G and 6G telecoms, wireless networks and the application of control systems to industrial processes.
Last year, Huawei invested $22bn, or 23% of its revenue, in R&D. Around 114,000 technicians, or 55% of its workforce, are involved in R&D activities.
The government of Shanghai commented last year that Lianqiu Lake would make Qingpu the “new highland of digital innovation”. It added that in the first half of 2023, the district’s GDP grew 15% year on year, ranking it second among all districts in the city.
As well as Huawei, Chinese tech companies such as NetEase and Midea have invested in Qingpu.
The construction of NetEase’s Shanghai International Culture and Innovation Park is under way, as is the expansion of Shanghai Shixi Software Information Park.
Meanwhile, construction work on the Yangtze River Delta Ecology Zone Railway Line has started. This will connect Qingpu New City with the surrounding districts.
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