First leg of Huawei's international optoelectronics headquarters construction at Cambridge gets a start

Amidst all of its struggles in the USA, Huawei has a positive piece of news to share from its UK establishment. In 2018, Huawei had acquired 500 acres of land in Cambridge and the first phase of the Huawei Campus was approved by the local council.

Huawei has said that this new R&D and manufacturing center will be located in the heart of the UK's ‘Silicon Fen’ and will focus on researching, developing, and manufacturing optoelectronics products.

Optoelectronics is a key technology used in fiber optic communication systems. With this investment, Huawei aims to bring the best of such technology to data centers and network infrastructure around the world.

Huawei will invest £1 billion in the first phase of the project, which includes the construction of 50,000 square meters of facilities across nine acres of land and will directly create around 400 local jobs.

This approval for Huawei follows over three years of work and planning. Huawei began the search for the ideal location back in 2017 and completed the acquisition of the 500 acres-South Cambridgeshire site in 2018. The company began its planning application process in early 2019. The site is located at the former Spicers paper mill and production facility located to the west of Sawston. The site includes over 50 acres of brownfield land.

Once fully operational, it will become the international headquarters of Huawei's optoelectronics business.

According to Huawei, this investment will be a major boost for high tech development in the region, helping to further cement Cambridge as a global innovation hub.

The first phase of the project will focus on the research, development, and manufacturing of optical devices and modules.

Victor Zhang, Vice President of Huawei believes that through close collaboration with research institutes, universities, and local industry, the company would be able to advance its optical communications technology for the industry as a whole and ultimately help enshrine UK's position in optoelectronics and promote UK tech on a global scale.