As the competition among global technology corporations to secure talent intensifies, Huawei, China's largest telecom equipment corporation, has launched a large-scale technology contest for science and engineering talent worldwide to secure future talent. After developing its own artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors and operating system, Huawei recently proposed the next-generation semiconductor design paradigm, the "tau (τ) scaling law," and is focusing on securing talent as the decisive battleground in next-generation technology competition.
On the 5th, the 10th Huawei information and communications technology (ICT) competition closed with an awards ceremony in Shenzhen, Guangdong, where Huawei's headquarters is located. This year, more than 220,000 science and engineering students and faculty from over 2,000 universities in more than 100 countries and regions participated, marking the largest scale on record.
After national preliminaries and regional competitions, 177 teams from 49 countries and regions advanced to the global finals and won awards. The top prize in each category, the special award, went to 18 teams from eight countries, including China, Nigeria, Singapore, Algeria, Brazil, Egypt, Kenya, and the Dominican Republic. According to the corporation, while the competition is not directly linked to employment at headquarters, award winners may be given priority consideration when applying to Huawei in the future.
◇ Intensifying talent war… Huawei says "it's actually an opportunity"
The ICT competition is a signature event that showcases Huawei's talent strategy, through which Huawei aims to identify promising global talent early and cultivate them into industry-ready professionals. According to the industry, the spread of Generative AI has caused a surge in demand for personnel in AI research, development (R&D), data, and computing, making the shortage of advanced technology personnel a global challenge. Huawei explained that while about 200 million ICT workers are needed worldwide, actual supply stands at around 140 million, leaving a shortage of about 60 million.
Since launching the ICT competition in 2015, Huawei has identified talent in AI, computing, big data, and cybersecurity. Participants compete in technical competencies used in industrial settings, such as network building, cloud computing, and AI model development, and the competition has become one of the world's largest ICT talent contests.
Du Min, president of Huawei's higher education business unit, said, "Today, the global shortage of ICT talent is worsening, and demand is growing rapidly, especially in AI. This is both a challenge and a huge opportunity." Du added, "Huawei has long invested consistently in smart education. We support the entire learning process, from classroom instruction to hands-on training, various competitions, and innovation programs," noting, "The ICT competition is part of that. Huawei seeks to bridge classroom learning with real industry settings."
◇ Nurturing future technology on a 3.8 million-square-foot campus
Huawei's Xichun campus in Dongguan, about an hour from central Shenzhen, is the corporation's R&D campus where such talent gathers. Construction began in 2015, and it has been built to a scale of 1.27 million square meters (about 3.8 million square feet). That is equivalent to 178 soccer fields and 5.5 times the size of Yeouido Park in Seoul. Modeled after European cities, it consists of 12 villages and 108 buildings, with 20,000 to 30,000 people working there.
On the ground, the campus felt more like a real town than a corporation, with not only lakes, walking trails, plazas, cafes, restaurants, and sports facilities, but also residential facilities. A corporation official explained, "It was designed so employees can work in a more comfortable and creative environment." Huawei also opened the Xichun campus to finalists in this competition to let them experience its R&D environment firsthand.
The reason Huawei is putting so much effort into securing talent is tied to its R&D-centered corporate structure. More than half of Huawei's employees are R&D personnel, and last year's R&D investment reached 192.3 billion yuan (about 44 trillion won). That was 21.8% of total sales, an increase of about 2 trillion won from the previous year.
Huawei is moving to secure technological leadership in AI and semiconductors by proposing the "tau scaling law," a new concept that goes beyond "Moore's law," a long-standing standard in the semiconductor industry. After its self-developed AI Semiconductor "Ascend" and operating system "Harmony OS," it is even proposing a next-generation semiconductor design paradigm, broadening the scope of technological self-reliance. That is why Huawei is working to secure a future talent pool through various industry-academia cooperation projects, including the ICT competition.
Peng Honghua, head of Huawei's ICT strategy and business development department, said, "Starting with next year's competition, we will add a track in the China regional preliminaries to develop AI computing modules running on Ascend chips," adding, "We hope more young developers will take on the task and get exposure to cutting-edge technologies on the industry front lines."