Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of Huawei, said on Tuesday that the U.S. government's 90-day extension "doesn't mean much", adding that the company was ready to deal with the ban.
Ren's comments came after the U.S. Commerce Department said on Monday that it gave Huawei a 90-day license to purchase U.S. technologies to maintain existing networks and provide software updates to existing Huawei handsets. That marks a delay of the ban on U.S. technology exports to Huawei.
Ren said in an interview with Chinese media in Shenzhen on Tuesday that "We are very grateful to the U.S. companies. They have made a lot of contributions to us. Many of our consultants are from American companies such as IBM.
"We can make chips as good as those made by U.S. companies, but it does not mean that we will not buy chips from them," Ren added.
He said the company will not exclude U.S. chips. "Instead, we should grow together. But if there is a supply shortage, we have a backup. In the "peace period", half of our chips are from the U.S. companies and half from Huawei. We cannot be isolated from the world."
Ren also highlighted that Huawei's 5G plan will not be affected by the U.S. ban. "Others will definitely not be able to catch up with Huawei in 5G technologies for two or three years," he said.
Ren said Europe maintains close communications with Huawei and some features of 5G are very suitable for the rollout of the superfast technology in Europe. For instance, 5G capacity is 20 times that of 4G, and its power consumption 10 times less. "We also use materials that will not corrode for decades, and these characteristics are very suitable for Europe."
Ren said the U.S. technologies are still worth learning in both their depth and width. Many small U.S. companies have super-precision products.
"But in our business (5G), Huawei is at the forefront, though when it comes to comparison between countries, we are still far behind the United States,"Ren added.
