The Cloud & AI Business Group (Cloud& AI BG), one of Huawei’s four business groups, has been in existence for just over a year since January 2020, and recently announced its split after a personnel restructuring in January this year. The division was split into two with significant personnel changes. Huawei Cloud and several of its global subsidiaries were on the U.S. sanctions list last year.
Huawei withdraws cloud and computing business group to adjust personnel again
Caixin.com reported on April 6 that Huawei issued an internal document on April 2 announcing the abolition of its Cloud & AI BG (Cloud & Computing Business Group).
The business group was split into two – the cloud business unit was headed by Zhang Pingan as president, replacing Huawei Consumer Business Group CEO Yu Chengdong, who previously served as president; hardware products such as servers and storage were divided into the Network Products and Solutions division, Huawei’s R&D department, which was renamed ICT Product Solutions.
Huawei’s Cloud and Computing Business Group was established in January 2010 and is Huawei’s fourth largest division after the Commercial Telecom Network Division, Enterprise Business Group and Consumer Division.
The report said that after the split and restructuring, Huawei has almost returned to its pre-2020 structure. The newspaper quoted a Huawei insider as saying, “Assigning hardware products to the cloud business is reform, and returning to the previous position is called ‘deepening reform’.”
Zhang Pingan, who was appointed president of the cloud business unit this time, was originally president of Huawei’s consumer business cloud services and was a subordinate of the replaced Yu Chengdong.
Yu Chengdong was just appointed president of the cloud and computing business group on January 27 this year, while also serving as president of the cloud business unit, and had also represented Huawei Cloud on March 22, issuing an invitation to the Huawei Developer Conference 2021, which was planned to be held in Shenzhen on April 24.
At that time, Huawei Cloud business for personnel adjustment, the original responsible for the cloud and computing business group Hou Jinlong was transferred to Huawei Digital Energy Technology Co., Ltd. chairman; the original cloud business unit president Zheng Yelai no new appointment.
A number of Huawei Cloud global subsidiaries are on the U.S. sanctions list
Previously on August 18, 2020, the U.S. Trump (Trump) administration’s Department of Commerce added a new list of sanctions against Huawei, placing 38 of Huawei’s subsidiaries in 21 countries around the world on the list of export-controlled entities. These 38 subsidiaries mainly involve Huawei Cloud and OpenLab branches inside and outside the mainland, as well as Huawei Technologies’ branch in the UK.
The U.S. Department of Commerce requires that semiconductor products manufactured by U.S. or foreign manufacturers that supply Huawei, as long as they contain U.S. technology and software development and manufacturing, be licensed by the U.S. government before they can be supplied to Huawei and the organizations listed on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List.
The sanctioned Huawei cloud subsidiaries are located in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Russia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dalian and Guiyang.
At that time, then U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview with Fox TV (FOX) that Huawei was a spy channel for China (Communist Party of China), that Huawei used U.S. semiconductor technology to spy on the U.S., which was not easily detected by the general public, and that Huawei was also spying in the U.K. and the EU.
Before the above sanctions, the U.S. Department of Defense in June of the same year identified Huawei and 20 other mainland companies with a Communist Party military background, the Chinese Communist Party can monitor and obtain user information through Huawei’s equipment. Australia’s refusal to use Huawei equipment back in 2012 was based on Huawei’s CCP military background.
U.S. political risk management consultant Ross Feingold told Radio Free Asia last year that it would be very difficult for Huawei to develop its own semiconductors if it could not get them produced using U.S. technology, and that their internal capabilities would not be up to the latest technology.
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