Despite its imminent US ban and all the scrutiny in the past few months, Huawei has managed to find a client to install 5G infrastructure and that client is none other than – Russia. The company’s representatives signed the agreement during Chinese president Xi Jinping’s three-day visit to the country.
According to the BBC, the Chinese telecoms giant signed a deal with MTS, a Russian telecommunications organisation, to develop the nation’s 5G technology.
It will take Huawei a year to get the job done, it was added.
According to AFP, MTS said the deal will see “the development of 5G technologies and the pilot launch of fifth generation networks in 2019 and 2020."
It’s safe to assume Huawei signed the deal with a sigh of relief, following an intense few months on the Western front, where it ended up banned in the US.
The US president blacklisted the Chinese company, citing national security issues. Huawei’s 5G infrastructure could be used by the Chinese government for espionage, the US government argued, which resulted in the ban.
Huawei, on the other hand, denied these accusations on every occasion it had, saying there was no proof for the claims. It invited western representatives to oversee the work, and argued that with all the scrutiny, it was probably more secure and more transparent than other companies.
It still ended up on the US blacklist, losing support from companies like Google, Broadcom and ARM, which supplies itself with parts from US companies.
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