00:01Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada
00:30And we are going to see what is an industry strategy.
00:36How can it be articulated and to be effective?
00:40How to create a link between research and industry,
00:45between theory and practice?
00:48To answer all those questions, I receive Wei-Lang Chi,
00:52CEO of Huawei France, and Jacques Billot,
00:56chairman of the board of Huawei.
00:59Thank you for this great moment to talk about industry again.
01:04Jacques Billot, you were president of the Ecole Polytechnique,
01:08and now you are chairman of the board of Huawei,
01:12a major industrial player.
01:14What led you to move from academia to industry,
01:19from research to development,
01:21and what do Polytechnique and Huawei have in common?
01:25Thank you, and good morning everybody.
01:28Well, basically, they have the same philosophy.
01:31When I was president at Polytechnique,
01:33I mean executive president,
01:35I had set up three pillars for the institution.
01:40The first one was science, as the core of the reactor.
01:44The second one was teaching,
01:46which was really transmission and building talent.
01:49And the third one was entrepreneurship.
01:51And this is exactly what I found at Huawei,
01:54because Huawei is a company which is completely driven by research,
01:58with a focus, I mean, with really a great openness to fundamental research.
02:04We'll come back to that later.
02:05It really invests on talent,
02:09and talent is essential for us.
02:11And it's a company of more than 200,000 people,
02:15which is still moved by an entrepreneurial spirit.
02:19So, same values.
02:21And really, I feel that both the academy and Huawei have the same values
02:31to really change society and provide solutions to the big challenges
02:36that society is facing today,
02:38like climate, like health, like the economy.
02:43So, really, it's great to be at Huawei after Polytechnique.
02:46So, how Huawei sees the link between research and industrial development,
02:52and how Huawei believes that science can support industrial industry?
02:57Well, the way we've structured it is we have three tiers for our research and development.
03:04One of them, and William will elaborate more on that later,
03:09is really focused on client needs.
03:11You know, Huawei is loved by its clients
03:14because we always provide solutions to the difficulties that customers may meet.
03:24And so, we have teams which are specialized on client business-driven research.
03:29Then, we have a second tier of teams which are technology-driven.
03:35Really, how to change the technology.
03:37Basically, it would be the teams which worked on the 5G
03:40and were instrumental in setting up the standards for 5G at the worldwide level.
03:48And finally, we have a team which is about 10% of the expenses in R&D.
03:54We have a team which is focusing on fundamental research,
03:58what in university we call curiosity-driven research,
04:01which is the type of research where scientists are free to work and search at the frontier of knowledge,
04:11at the frontier of sciences.
04:12They know what the big issues are for science, and so they are free to work there.
04:19The only contract that we have with them is,
04:21okay, you know the frontiers of science, but tell us which application could be derived from your research.
04:29Yeah, how can we use, right?
04:31Absolutely.
04:32Good.
04:32Can we have also your point of view, please, Mr. Achi?
04:35Yeah, Alexia. Thank you very much for this question.
04:38So, from my point of view, actually, maybe this is more simple,
04:42because I look after the commercial teams in France as well for the R&D.
04:48We have almost 350 R&D people working in France now,
04:52and also more than 300 people working in the commercial.
04:55For me, actually, I think the R&D is to spend, to think about how you spend the money.
05:05Yeah, when we talk about the R&D, it's talking about the investment in the research,
05:10and then we will talk about the industry,
05:12is to tell about how we can win the money back to the company.
05:18Yeah, so we must link this together, because the R&D must have the best product to sell in the
05:24customer level.
05:25And also, in our company, we have a short-term strategy, and also the long-term strategy.
05:31On the short-term strategy, we really need to satisfy our customer in the short-term,
05:36because you never know the customer can give you the PO, purchase order, or cancel the PO.
05:41Today, he can say they love this product. Tomorrow, he can say he loves the other products.
05:46So this is very easy to happen, I think, recently.
05:50But for the R&D, it's very difficult to say that in six months, you need to invest in this
05:56product.
05:57In the next six months, you need to invest for the next product.
06:00On the industry level, it's very hard to say that.
06:03For example, 5G. 5G is a technology that we started to invest 10 years ago.
06:08Yeah, and now we started to invest in the 6G. The 6G will be ready in 10 years.
06:14But you cannot stop. You cannot slow down for the investment.
06:17So there must be a strong link and a sustainable investment between the R&D and also the industry.
06:26And with so many research topics, how do you choose your priorities? It's kind of difficult.
06:32How do we choose the priorities? All this depends.
06:34There is no fixed strategy to tell you how you choose your strategy.
06:39But from Huawei's point of view, actually, we select first what we want to do.
06:47Because in this world, there are a lot of topics. There are a lot of customer needs.
06:51You cannot meet every needs from the customer.
06:53So you must understand what you want to go.
06:56For example, more than three decades, Huawei continues to focus on the R&D, in the telecom, in the infrastructure
07:05of the ICT.
07:07So more than 20 years, we do our business in France.
07:12And more than 36 years that we do our business over the world, around the infrastructure.
07:18So this is what our strategy is. And then we can understand what the customer needs.
07:23There is so big difference about the customer needs between 20 years ago and now.
07:31Even the data typology is different.
07:34Before, we had only the type of data, like the data of numbers, the data of video, the data of
07:44photo.
07:44But today, we have two many different kinds of data.
07:48And we also have strong support from the transmission level.
07:53So we cannot say very easily how we can choose our strategy.
07:59But it all depends on what we are going to do and what the customer needs.
08:04And again, I think customer needs can be changed easily.
08:07But your strategy cannot be changed easily.
08:11Because if you change your strategy, you will not have enough investment on the money and also on the time.
08:18So on one side, you have the vision and the strategy, but you also...
08:21Exactly. You have to consider two things both together.
08:25To balance the short-term investment and the long-term investment.
08:29Short-term payback and the long-term payback.
08:31Thank you, Jack.
08:32And we insist on sharing the outcomes of our research with the community.
08:37So for all the fundamental research, everything is published.
08:41So it's open access.
08:43And I mean, no IP for the rest of it, which really leads to applications.
08:49We do have patents.
08:51I mean, we're number one or two in the world for the number of patents that we submit.
08:56And so one way to know what the priorities of Huawei are is to really read our patents.
09:02And you will see that we are very strong in many respects.
09:05Exactly. Yeah.
09:06So in France, everybody knows 5G.
09:09And one of the most important 5G technology actually is created by our French teams 10 years ago.
09:15Nice.
09:15So this is a good result.
09:16Yeah.
09:17Okay.
09:17But after 10 years.
09:18And how Huawei's latest research priorities turn it into a business opportunity?
09:26Okay.
09:27As you know, Huawei is very, very famous today about our 5G.
09:31But actually 5G represents only 10% of our revenue.
09:35Yeah.
09:35So what the other 90% revenue come from.
09:38You may not know that Huawei is invested a long time ago in the photovoltaic in the solar business.
09:46Okay.
09:46Yeah.
09:47So this is one of the cases that we successfully transfer from our R&D to the industry.
09:54Yeah.
09:55How we can provide an alternative solution of the energy to our customer.
10:01Actually, this idea initially come from our telecom customer.
10:05Yeah.
10:05Because they want the equipment to save the energy.
10:09And they want to provide the green energy.
10:12Yeah.
10:13So 10 years ago, we started to go with direction.
10:15But today, we find that there is much more potential that we can do.
10:18Not for the only telecom industry, but also for the utility commercial industry.
10:25And also residential scenario.
10:28Yeah.
10:28So we are very successful today.
10:30Two years ago, in Europe and also in China, another successful story is about autonomous car.
10:39Yeah.
10:40We are not a sense to invest and develop the main business in automotive.
10:46But now we made it.
10:48Yeah.
10:48So if you are interested to know more about the Huawei innovation about the autonomous driving system,
10:54you can type A-I-T-O, A-I-T-O, A-T-O, yeah, from your Google or Chrome
11:01to see what our autonomous driving system works.
11:06Today, we are not commercialized yet in Europe, but in China, yeah, there is a lot of demand.
11:11Only within 12 months that we successfully produce more than 100,000 electricity cars in China.
11:22So this is a really big honor, yeah, for these successful stories.
11:27Thank you.
11:28Yeah.
11:28Your point of view, please.
11:29Yes.
11:30Well, I think as a conclusion, what you should really keep in mind is that the fact, first of all,
11:35half of the 200,000 people at Huawei are people with a background, with scientific background.
11:42You know, they are doctors, they are scientists, researchers.
11:45So this really shows how important for us it is to do research.
11:49The second point I would like to focus on is the fact that France is very important for Huawei in
11:57general
11:57and for our research in particular.
11:59You know, if you look at France, about one-third of the staff, 300 researchers, one-third of the staff
12:07is doing R&D.
12:08We have five centers, R&D centers, which are, I would say, in the second tier that I mentioned earlier,
12:16the one which is technology-driven.
12:18We have one which is working on fundamental research with Fields Medan and in the Lagrange Center in Paris.
12:26And we also have an open lab to work with clients to work on their needs and make sure that
12:34their needs are translated into products
12:36which will serve their expectations.
12:39Yeah, yeah.
12:39Open lab is very industry level because after we produce already our product and then this open lab allowed
12:48how our R&Ds guys work again with the industry to meet their needs.
12:54And I guess you also hire talent people also in the research and development, right?
13:00Yeah.
13:01So this is great news. Thank you so much for this conversation.
13:06Yeah.
13:06We can definitely say that Huawei is a big player in this industry and also I do believe that there
13:15is
13:15a very strong link between research and development with your company.
13:19So this is all good news for Huawei in France.
13:22And I'm confident that you will increase your footprint in the future for sure.
13:27Thank you so much.
13:27Exactly.
13:28Yeah.
13:28Thank you.
13:28Yeah.
13:29Thank you.
13:29Thank you.
13:29Okay. Thank you.
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