Huawei to open £125 million research facility in UK

Huawei, the Chinese firm in charge of restricting its countrymens' access to content – and big favourite of David Cameron – has announced it will be opening a £125 million research and development centre in the UK, despite concerns that the company may be too closely linked to the Chinese government to be impartial when it comes to security procedures.

This all comes as part of a unification strategy between the UK and China, spearheaded by chancellor George Osbourne, who has also announced an easing off of visa applications for those coming from China. He was pleased to also welcome investment from Chinese firm, Rekoo, which will become the first firm from the nation to set up shop in London's Tech City.

Gaining dominance in the smartphone game isn't a bad way to get ahead

Huawei is currently the world's second biggest telecom provider and has been part of UK business for some time. However in recent years some concern has been held over its links with the Chinese government and its placement within British telecoms industry. It's been implied that some of its security clearances of hardware could theoretically hide monitoring equipment or loopholes that could be exploited by its government back home.

US politicians have also expressed concerns, but clearly from Osbourne's recent actions and Cameron's praising of the company's restrictive filtering system, this cooperation isn't going to end any time soon.

KitGuru Says: That's some big money being thrown around, so it's understandable why politicians would like it, but Huawei's supposed ties with the Chinese military are a little worrying.

[Thanks Wired]

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