Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has secretly funded research at American universities, including Harvard, through the Optica Foundation. Huawei is the sole funder of a research competition awarded millions of dollars since 2022. The competition is administered by the Optica Foundation, a nonprofit professional society whose members’ research on light underpins technologies such as communications, biomedical diagnostics, and lasers.
The funding arrangement likely doesn’t violate U.S. regulations, but the lack of transparency raises concerns about foreign influence and potential national security risks. Huawei’s involvement was unknown to many applicants and university officials until recently.
Huawei’s Stealth Funding of U.S. Research
Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies has been secretly funding advanced research at American universities, including Harvard, through an independent Washington-based foundation, the Optica Foundation. Huawei is the sole funder of a research competition that has awarded millions of dollars since its inception in 2022, attracting hundreds of proposals from scientists worldwide, including those at top U.S. universities that have banned their researchers from working with the company. The competition is administered by the Optica Foundation, an arm of the nonprofit professional society Optica, whose members’ research on light underpins technologies such as communications, biomedical diagnostics, and lasers.
The funding agreement stipulates that the foundation is not required to designate Huawei as the competition’s funding source or program sponsor. This arrangement reveals one strategy Huawei is using to remain at the forefront of funding international research despite a web of U.S. restrictions imposed over the past several years in response to concerns that Beijing could use its technology as a spy tool.
The Optica Foundation and Huawei’s Involvement
The Optica Foundation’s website lists 11 “Early Career Prizes & Fellowships opportunities.” All but the Huawei-funded competition, which awards $1 million annually, list individual and corporate financial contributors. A Huawei spokesperson stated that the company and the Optica Foundation created the competition to support global research and promote academic communication. The spokesperson added that Huawei’s name was kept private to prevent the contest from being seen as promotional and that there was no ill intent.
Liz Rogan, Optica’s chief executive officer, said that some foundation donors “prefer to remain anonymous, including U.S. donors” and that “there is nothing unusual about this practice.” Rogan said the Huawei donation had been reviewed by outside legal counsel and won the approval of the foundation’s board.
Huawei’s Funding and U.S. Universities
Many U.S. universities have told researchers in recent years to cut ties with Huawei, fearful of losing funding from federal sources, including the Pentagon and National Science Foundation, because of security concerns. Schools have also beefed up policies requiring academics to disclose foreign funding. The foundation’s secret funding arrangement likely doesn’t violate U.S. Commerce Department regulations blocking people and organizations from sharing technology with Huawei, as such rules don’t apply to the type of research the competition is soliciting — science that’s meant to be published.
However, research security specialists said the lack of transparency underlying the arrangement nonetheless violates the spirit of university and U.S. funding-agency policies requiring researchers to disclose whether they’re receiving foreign money. They also said some of the resulting research is likely to have both defense and commercial relevance.
Huawei’s Influence on Research and Talent Acquisition
Funding the competition could effectively let Huawei influence “what research projects it would like to see without having to contract directly with academic institutions,” said Jeff Stoff, founder of the nonprofit Center for Research Security & Integrity. He said the company could use the arrangement to recruit talent by sponsoring applicants of interest and acquiring intellectual property from their research in the future.
Several universities whose researchers were awarded funding were required to accept the money on the winners’ behalf. These include Harvard, the University of Southern California, and Vanderbilt, as well as The University of British Columbia and Wilfrid Laurier in Canada. These universities declined to comment on whether they would take action in response to the findings.
Huawei’s Long-term Commitment to the Optica Foundation
Huawei became a member of the foundation’s parent organization Optica in late 2021 right as it committed to sponsoring the competition. It plans to fund the event for a decade, which would mean awarding a total of $10 million based on past disbursements. The foundation is currently accepting proposals for the 2024 application cycle, with plans to grant 10 winners $100,000 each for the third year in a row.
Huawei has one executive on the competition’s 10-person selection committee. The Hong Kong-based scientist, Xiang Liu, is Huawei’s Chief Optical Standards Expert. In 2021, he published a book about 5G communications technology after spending more than seven years at Huawei’s U.S. unit Futurewei.
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