Telecom network maker Huawei will be spending $2 billion in the UK to address security issues raised in a British government report earlier this year, Reuters reported.
China-based Huawei Technologies has agreed to demands by UK security officials to address risks found in its equipment and software in a bid to avoid being shut out from future 5G telecoms networks, Financial Times reported separately.
Huawei Technologies, the leading telecom infrastructure supplier with 28 percent share, has agreed to a series of technical demands which will change its practices in the UK at a meeting this week between Huawei executives and officials from GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, the FT reported.
The Reuters report said the British government report, signed off by Britain’s GCHQ spy agency and released in July, found that technical and supply-chain issues with equipment made by Huawei had exposed national telecom networks to new security risks.
Those issues included technical problems which limited security researchers’ ability to check internal product codes and concerns about the security of third-party components from a U.S. supplier.
Huawei has since met with British officials and committed to spending $2 billion in a drive to fix the problems.
The decision on additional investment in UK was made before the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canada on Dec. 1.
Meng Wanzhou, who is also the daughter of the company’s founder, will be appearing in a Vancouver court in Canada on Friday for a bail hearing as she awaits possible extradition to the United States.
Countries including Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the U.S. may block Huawei from selling its networking products to telecom operators.
The European Union’s technology commissioner Andrus Ansip said on Friday that the EU should be worried about Huawei and other Chinese technology companies because of the risk they pose to the bloc’s industry and security.
Germany, meanwhile, said it opposed excluding any manufacturers from the planned construction of 5G mobile networks.
However, Belgian newspapers L’Echo and De Tijd reported the country’s center for cybersecurity was considering the possibility of banning Huawei in Belgium. The company supplies equipment to telecom service providers Proximus and Orange Belgium.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Friday Chinese tech giant Huawei was welcome in France, though the government could block certain investments.
