- Messages
- 1,734
- Reactions
- Nation of residence
-
- Nation of origin
-
How an obscure Turkish scientist’s obscure theoretical breakthrough helped the Chinese tech giant gain control of the future. US telecoms never had a chance.
Illustration: MOJO WANG
https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-...rough/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB#
“The city of Shenzhen in July. The weather is hot, the trees brimming with life … ”
So begins the baritone voice-over in a video shot in the summer of 2018 by the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei and posted to YouTube. It chronicles a corporate event in the slightly corny style of a 1960s educational film, starting with aerial drone footage of Huawei's campus—an island of lush greenery surrounded by the high-rise buildings of the city known as China's Silicon Valley. A spirited orchestral version of Beethoven's “Turkish March” plays as a town car wends its way through the campus, pulling up to a stately white structure mixing classical Greek architecture and the wide overhanging rooftops of China's great pagodas. There's a bit of the White House tossed in too.
This feature appears in the December 2020/January 2021 issue. Subscribe to WIRED.
Illustration: Carl De Torres, StoryTK
Two footmen dressed in white approach the vehicle as it arrives. One opens the rear door. Guo Ping, one of Huawei's rotating chairmen, steps forward and extends a hand as the guest emerges. After walking a red carpet, the two men enter the magnificent marble-floored building, ascend a stairway, and pass through French doors to a palatial ballroom. Several hundred people arise from their chairs and clap wildly. The guest is welcomed by Huawei's founder, Ren Zhengfei, whose sky-blue blazer and white khakis signify that he has attained the power to wear whatever the hell he wants.
After some serious speechifying by a procession of dark-suited executives, Ren—who is China's Bill Gates, Lee Iacocca, and Warren Buffett rolled into one—comes to the podium. Three young women dressed in white uniforms enter the room, swinging their arms military style as they march to the stage, then about-face in unison as one holds out a framed gold medal the size of a salad plate. Embedded with a red Baccarat crystal, it depicts the Goddess of Victory and was manufactured by the Monnaie de Paris. Ren is almost glowing as he presents the medal to the visitor.
This honored guest is not a world leader, a billionaire magnate, nor a war hero. He is a relatively unknown Turkish academic named Erdal Arıkan. Throughout the ceremony he has been sitting stiffly, frozen in his ill-fitting suit, as if he were an ordinary theatergoer suddenly thrust into the leading role on a Broadway stage.
Arıkan isn't exactly ordinary. Ten years earlier, he'd made a major discovery in the field of information theory. Huawei then plucked his theoretical breakthrough from academic obscurity and, with large investments and top engineering talent, fashioned it into something of value in the realm of commerce. The company then muscled and negotiated to get that innovation into something so big it could not be denied: the basic 5G technology now being rolled out all over the world.
Full article here https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-...hrough/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
Illustration: MOJO WANG
https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-...rough/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB#
“The city of Shenzhen in July. The weather is hot, the trees brimming with life … ”
So begins the baritone voice-over in a video shot in the summer of 2018 by the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei and posted to YouTube. It chronicles a corporate event in the slightly corny style of a 1960s educational film, starting with aerial drone footage of Huawei's campus—an island of lush greenery surrounded by the high-rise buildings of the city known as China's Silicon Valley. A spirited orchestral version of Beethoven's “Turkish March” plays as a town car wends its way through the campus, pulling up to a stately white structure mixing classical Greek architecture and the wide overhanging rooftops of China's great pagodas. There's a bit of the White House tossed in too.
This feature appears in the December 2020/January 2021 issue. Subscribe to WIRED.
Illustration: Carl De Torres, StoryTK
Two footmen dressed in white approach the vehicle as it arrives. One opens the rear door. Guo Ping, one of Huawei's rotating chairmen, steps forward and extends a hand as the guest emerges. After walking a red carpet, the two men enter the magnificent marble-floored building, ascend a stairway, and pass through French doors to a palatial ballroom. Several hundred people arise from their chairs and clap wildly. The guest is welcomed by Huawei's founder, Ren Zhengfei, whose sky-blue blazer and white khakis signify that he has attained the power to wear whatever the hell he wants.
After some serious speechifying by a procession of dark-suited executives, Ren—who is China's Bill Gates, Lee Iacocca, and Warren Buffett rolled into one—comes to the podium. Three young women dressed in white uniforms enter the room, swinging their arms military style as they march to the stage, then about-face in unison as one holds out a framed gold medal the size of a salad plate. Embedded with a red Baccarat crystal, it depicts the Goddess of Victory and was manufactured by the Monnaie de Paris. Ren is almost glowing as he presents the medal to the visitor.
This honored guest is not a world leader, a billionaire magnate, nor a war hero. He is a relatively unknown Turkish academic named Erdal Arıkan. Throughout the ceremony he has been sitting stiffly, frozen in his ill-fitting suit, as if he were an ordinary theatergoer suddenly thrust into the leading role on a Broadway stage.
Arıkan isn't exactly ordinary. Ten years earlier, he'd made a major discovery in the field of information theory. Huawei then plucked his theoretical breakthrough from academic obscurity and, with large investments and top engineering talent, fashioned it into something of value in the realm of commerce. The company then muscled and negotiated to get that innovation into something so big it could not be denied: the basic 5G technology now being rolled out all over the world.
Full article here https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-...hrough/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
