Huawei has announced a €70 million investment in Irish research and development (R&D) over the next three years to support its growing business in Ireland.
The company has said the R&D will focus on the areas of video, cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and site-reliability engineering (SRE). The work will be supported by over 100 highly-skilled researchers, experts and engineers Huawei employs across its R&D offices in Cork, Athlone and Dublin.
Guo Ping, Huawei Rotating Chairman, making the announcement in Shenzhen, said: “Ireland has outstanding talent and some of the best researchers in the world. Our R&D efforts are diverse in Ireland, like software in Dublin and hardware in Cork. Ireland has a great opportunity to continue to grow as an economy and become a technological hub. We are looking forward to strengthening our relationship with our local customers and partners.”
Jijay Shen, CEO of Huawei Ireland, said: “Our focus is on long-term investment and building positive relationships with key partners in Ireland. This investment over three years will help us drive innovation and collaboration in Ireland.”
The company’s Dublin R&D office is part of Huawei’s European Research Institute and forms part of Huawei’s research ecosystem. Huawei’s Irish R&D function is an important part of the local technology ecosystem in Ireland. It has developed positive and long-standing relationships with startups, government agencies and third-level institutions.
Huawei works with a number of Irish third-level institutions, including Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, and University College Cork. It helps fund vital Irish research into video, artificial intelligence and cloud computing. The company also partners key Science Foundation Ireland centres such as Connect, Insight, Adapt and Lero. In 2018, Huawei Ireland received a Technology Ireland award for its work with Adapt which focused on a system that enables automatic in-scene detection and placement of advertisements in videos.