Displaying items by tag: US

Huawei has appealed against Sweden’s decision to exclude the Chinese vendor from 5G networks, the Swedish telecoms regulator PTS said.

The ban, announced by the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) on October 20, "lacks legal basis, violates fundamental human rights, violates fundamental EU legal principles ... and is incorrect in substance," Huawei wrote in its appeal to PTS and the Stockholm administrative court.

If carried out, it would cause "exceptionally comprehensive and irreparable damage" to its business, Huawei added.

PTS has said that its ban, which also affects Chinese company ZTE, is in line with new legislation that took effect in January 2020, following an examination by Sweden's security service "to ensure that the use of radio equipment in these (5G network) bands does not cause harm to Sweden's security."

Kenneth Fredriksen, Huawei’s EVP of Central East Europe and the Nordics, told Reuters: “We think the decision that has been taken is not good for customers nor for Sweden in general.”  

“We therefore want a Swedish court to look at if the decision has been taken through a proper process and according to the law.”

European governments have been tightening controls on Chinese companies building 5G networks following diplomatic pressure from the US, which alleges Huawei and ZTE equipment could be used by Beijing for spying. Huawei has repeatedly denied being a national security risk.

Huawei said in its appeal there was "no concrete evidence of a cyber security threat" posed by the company, and insisted that "the Chinese state cannot order Huawei to spy".

The US has been persistent in its global campaign against Huawei and some other Chinese tech giants such as WeChat and TikTok.

Emerging reports have been pointing towards renewed pressure on South Korea and a number of European operators to replace cloud infrastructure and facilities which were supplied by Chinese vendors.

It has been reported that the US has urged Korean authorities to subscribe to its Clean Network initiative, an initiative that was received with a great deal of criticism a few months ago, amidst a call between the two nations’ politicians.

It has been disclosed that Korea left it up to private companies to decide what to do with their equipment and which vendor to use.

For some time now, the US has been carrying out a long-running campaign against Huawei with regards to its 5G equipment. This has drastically affected the supply chain of operators across the world. The US has been relentless in trying to persuade its allies in Europe to also scrap Chinese vendors’ cloud infrastructure, including but not limited to Huawei.

US representatives recently met with Deutsche Telekom and Masmovil to raise security concerns in relation to data center and cloud infrastructure provided by Chinese vendors.

This comes as the US ramped up its efforts to influence tech policies across the rest of the world. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and US Agency for International Development (USAID) signed a memorandum of understanding in an effort to ensure that developing countries avoid working with “untrusted vendors” and encourage them to use “open, interoperable, reliable and secure” infrastructure.

However, despite the US’s efforts to undermine Huawei and other Chinese vendors, there is still no conclusive evidence that justifies their actions to target and harm their business abroad.

US President Donald Trump has given his approval to the proposed deal between ByteDance, Oracle and Walmart for TikTok’s US operations. The announcement was made a day after the US Commerce Department issued an order prohibiting business with WeChat and TikTok in order to protect national security.

The agreement will see the establishment of a new company called TikTok Global, with four US directors out of five. Together, Oracle and Walmart would hold 20 percent of the new company, for a still undisclosed price. The final transaction will need to get approval from the relevant US government agencies, as well as from Chinese authorities.

Oracle will take a 12.5 percent stake in TikTok Global and will store the data of US data in its own cloud infrastructure. Oracle CEO Safra Catz said Oracle will quickly deploy, rapidly scale and operate TikTok systems in the Oracle Cloud.

Oracle already announced that it was chosen to become TikTok’s secure cloud technology provider. The company believes this technical decision by TikTok was heavily influenced by Zoom’s recent success in moving a large portion of its video conferencing capacity to the Oracle Public Cloud.

“TikTok picked Oracle’s new Generation 2 Cloud infrastructure because it’s much faster, more reliable, and more secure than the first generation technology currently offered by all the other major cloud providers,” said Oracle Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison.

“In the 2020 Industry CloudPath survey that IDC recently released where it surveyed 935 Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) customers on their satisfaction with the top IaaS vendors including Oracle, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM and Google Cloud.... Oracle IaaS received the highest satisfaction score.”

“As a part of this agreement, TikTok will run on the Oracle Cloud and Oracle will become a minority investor in TikTok Global,” said Oracle CEO Safra Catz. “Oracle will quickly deploy, rapidly scale, and operate TikTok systems in the Oracle Cloud. We are a hundred percent confident in our ability to deliver a highly secure environment to TikTok and ensure data privacy to TikTok’s American users, and users throughout the world. This greatly improved security and guaranteed privacy will enable the continued rapid growth of the TikTok user community to benefit all stakeholders.”

ByteDance rejected Microsoft’s offer for its TikTok operations in the US and chose Oracle as “trusted tech partner”. Microsoft had indicated at the beginning of August that it was interested in acquiring TikTok's US operations, but later announced that bid had been rejected.

Microsoft expressed disappointment in the rejection and said it was confident its proposal would have been good for TikTok users, while protection national security interests. 

"ByteDance let us know they would not be selling TikTok's US operations to Microsoft," the US tech giant said in a statement.

 "We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok's users, while protecting national security interests," it added.

ByteDance has rejected Microsoft’s offer for its TikTok operations in the US and has reportedly chosen Oracle as “trusted tech partner”.

The Oracle bid would next need approval from the White House and Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, with both parties under the belief it would meet US data security concerns.

TikTok has been at the center of a diplomatic storm between the US and China, and President Donald Trump has given Americans a deadline to stop doing business with TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance – effectively compelling a sale of the app to a US company.

Microsoft had indicated at the beginning of August that it was interested in acquiring TikTok's US operations, but later announced that bid had been rejected.

Microsoft expressed disappointment in the rejection and said it was confident its proposal would have been good for TikTok users, while protection national security interests. 

"ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok's US operations to Microsoft," the US tech giant said in a statement.

 "We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok's users, while protecting national security interests," it added.

Under the deal with Oracle, at least some of ByteDance’s existing investors will get stakes in the venture. These investors include Sequoia Capital and General Atlantic. Meanwhile, Walmart said in a statement that it is thinking of joining Oracle and that it is still in talks with ByteDance “leadership and other interested parties.” 

Sources said Oracle is mainly interested in TikTok to boost its cloud-computing business. For Microsoft, owning TikTok would have helped the company build its presence among everyday consumers, and given it more data on young users.

Downloaded 175 million times in the United States, TikTok is used by as many as a billion people worldwide to make quirky, short-form videos on their cellphones. It has repeatedly denied sharing data with Beijing.

TikTok meanwhile has filed a lawsuit challenging the crackdown by the US government, contending that Trump's order was a misuse of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because the platform is not "an unusual and extraordinary threat."

Controversially Trump has demanded that the US government get a cut of any deal, which critics contend appears unconstitutional and akin to extortion.

Bidding for TikTok comes amid a broader deterioration of relations between the world's top two economies in recent months, with the US and China locked in fierce recriminations over trade disputes, human rights and the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Following security concerns from US officials, it has been announced that Google and Facebook have scrapped plans for a giant subsea cable from Los Angeles to Hong Kong.

The Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) was first announced in 2016, with backing from Google, Facebook and other companies including Pacific Light Data Communication and TE SubCom.

The PLCN is a high-capacity fiber-optic undersea cable running for approximately 12,800km under the Pacific Ocean between Hong Kong and Los Angeles. In 2016, Google said that the PLCN would have an estimated capacity of 120TB per second, making it the highest capacity trans-Pacific route.

“In other words, PLCN will provide enough capacity for Hong Kong to have 80m concurrent HD video conference calls with Los Angeles,” the company said at the time.

The 12,800 km long cable has already been laid, costing hundreds of millions of dollars. However it needs permission from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in order to operate.

Breakdown of plans

A US government committee, known as Team Telecom, raised concerns about Dr. Peng Telecom and Media Group’s involvement, citing its "relationship with Chinese intelligence and security services".

While Google and Facebook can be considered the most high-profile stakeholders, much of the cable’s fiber optics belong to Pacific Light Data Communication, which is owned by Dr. Peng Telecom.

In light of these concerns and the delays they were causing, Google sought permission from the FCC to activate only the self-owned portions of the subsea cable network in February 2020, effectively cutting Pacific Light Data Communication from the project.

In April of this year, Google were awarded temporary authority for construction and testing. The FCC said it would allow the company to operate the segment of cable between the US and Taiwan – but not Hong Kong – for six months, pending a final disposition of the license application.

However, as tensions between the US and China continue to grow, it became increasingly likely that US officials would reject the use of the cable on the grounds of national security.

What’s happening now?

While the special temporary authority wasn’t due to expire until the end of September, Bloomberg reported a few weeks ago that Google and Facebook have dumped their original plans for a subsea cable between the US and Hong Kong.

Instead, the companies submitted a revised proposal that incorporates the links to Taiwan and the Philippines, but crucially leaves out Hong Kong-based Pacific Light Data Communication.

A spokesperson for Google told the BBC: “We can confirm that the original application for the PLCN cable system has been withdrawn, and a revised application for the US-Taiwan and US-Philippines portions of the system has been submitted.

“We continue to work through established channels to obtain cable landing licenses for our undersea cables.”

While the fight to use the PLCN drags on, Google also announced in July of this year that it is building another subsea cable, named the ‘Grace Hopper’ cable, connecting the UK, US and Spain.

The cable marks Google’s first investment in a private subsea cable route to the UK and its first ever route to Spain. Today, 98pc of international internet traffic is carried around the world by subsea cables.

US telecommunications networks, which have relied on network equipment from China’s Huawei and ZTE, have told the government that it would cost $1.837 billion to replace those switches and routers, the Federal Communications Commission said.

In June, the FCC formally designated Huawei and ZTE as threats to US national security, a declaration that bars US firms from accessing an $8.3 billion government fund to purchase equipment from the companies.

FCC commissioners said the report shows the need for Congress to approve funding to replace that equipment. Congress has authorized reimbursements but has not approved the money.

The FCC said it believes the carriers would be eligible for reimbursements of about $1.62 billion.

“By identifying the presence of insecure equipment and services in our networks, we can now work to ensure that these networks — especially those of small and rural carriers — rely on infrastructure from trusted vendors,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said, urging Congress “to appropriate funding to reimburse carriers for replacing any equipment or services determined to be a national security threat so that we can protect our networks.”

Huawei is ramping up efforts in its cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) business, which still has access to US chips despite sanctions against the company, in a move to secure its survival, according to the Financial Times.

Huawei has seen rapid growth in its cloud computing business, which sells computing power and storage to companies, including giving them access to AI.

The cloud business is key to stabilizing Huawei in its home market, as Beijing will increasingly support the company through public cloud contracts.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic struck, Huawei observed the acceleration of cloud computing – putting its unit on an equal footing with its smartphones and telecoms equipment businesses.

In January, the company announced changes to its organizational structure and management team, creating a fourth business group for its cloud computing and AI divisions in a sign that the telecom giant is aiming its attention at this growing sector.

A focus on cloud computing puts Huawei in direct competition with the biggest Chinese players including Alibaba and Tencent, as well as global heavyweights such as Amazon and Google.

The changes echo Huawei’s “Cloud Only” strategy in which the company pledged to invest more resources and funds to build a “full-stack cloud platform.”

This shift in focus is necessary because the outlook for Huawei’s smartphone and other consumer products unit is impaired in the face of US restrictions. The consumer unit was responsible for half of Huawei’s $122 billion revenue last year.

The Trump administration has restricted technology exports to Chinese companies in particular, notably Huawei, citing national security risks.

Meanwhile, vendors of semiconductors needed for cloud computing are still allowed to ship to Huawei if they have a license exempting them from the restrictions.

TikTok’s CEO said he has quit the company as tensions soar between Washington and Beijing over the Chinese-owned video platform.

Kevin Mayer said that he was resigning after the company came under sustained pressure from the Trump administration over its alleged ties to China.

Mayer's resignation comes days after TikTok filed a lawsuit challenging a crackdown by the US government over claims the wildly popular social media app can be used to spy on Americans.

TikTok has been at the center of a diplomatic storm between the US and China, and President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 6 giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance, effectively setting a deadline for a sale of the app to a US company.

TikTok, which has been downloaded 175 million times in the US and more than a billion times around the world, argued in the suit that Trump's order was a misuse of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because the platform, on which users share often playful short-form videos, is not "an unusual and extraordinary threat."

Former Disney executive Mayer, who has only been in the post since May, said in a letter to staff that the "political environment has sharply changed" in recent weeks.

"Against this backdrop, and as we expect to reach a resolution very soon, it is with a heavy heart that I wanted to let you all know that I have decided to leave the company," he wrote.

"I understand that the role that I signed up for, including running TikTok globally, will look very different as a result of the US administration's action to push for a sell-off of the US business."

TikTok said in a statement: "We appreciate that the political dynamics of the last few months have significantly changed what the scope of Kevin's role would be going forward, and fully respect his decision. We thank him for his time at the company and wish him well."

Software giant Oracle is weighing a bid to join Microsoft and Twitter in the race to acquire part of TikTok, it is reported.

Oracle is “seriously considering” buying TikTok US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, according to the report.

The Financial Times sources added that ByteDance is also working with investment firms such as General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital to find a buyer. 

The US government has ordered TikTok parent ByteDance to sell off its US operations within 90 days. Under the emergency order, the US government will also have the final say on who gets to buy the Chinese company’s operations

China meanwhile slammed Washington for using "digital gunboat diplomacy" in the TikTok case.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said TikTok had done everything required by the US, including hiring Americans as its top executives, hosting its servers in the US and making public its source code.

But the app has been "unable to escape the robbery through trickery undertaken by some people in the US based on bandit logic and political self-interest," Zhao said at a regular press conference.

TikTok separately announced an alliance with music distribution platform UnitedMasters, playing to budding artists and their fans despite US steps to bar the popular app.

The deal to integrate UnitedMasters into TikTok promised to build on a trend of the platform being a way for musicians to be discovered by posting short-clip videos.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Trump administration announced it will further tighten restrictions on Huawei, aimed at cracking down on its access to commercially available chips.

A Commerce Department statement added 38 Huawei affiliates around the world to the "entity list," claiming that the company was using international subsidiaries to circumvent the sanctions which prevent export of US-based technology.

Ramped-up US restrictions are likely to cut off the Chinese smartphone maker’s access to even off-the-shelf chips and disrupt the global tech supply chain once again, executives and experts cautioned.

“It will have a huge impact,” said Gu Wenjun, chief analyst at Shanghai-based consultancy ICWise, referring to tighter U.S. curbs. “It will throw off Huawei’s plans to obtain chips by purchasing them externally, rather than relying on HiSilicon.”

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Huawei and its affiliates "have worked through third parties to harness US technology in a manner that undermines US national security and foreign policy interests."

US officials have argued Huawei poses a security risk because of its links to the Beijing government, a claim denied by the company.

The toughening of sanctions comes amid heightened US-China tensions and claims by Washington that Chinese firms are being used for spying, despite repeated denials.

President Donald Trump has also sought to ban the wildly popular mobile application TikTok if it is not divested by its Chinese parent firm ByteDance.

5G

The Trump administration has banned Huawei from 5G wireless networks in the United States and has pressed allies to do the same.

In the meantime, Huawei became the largest global smartphone manufacturer in the past quarter, largely due to sales in the Chinese market, even as Washington moves to deny the company access to much of the Google Android system.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a separate statement that the Trump Administration "sees Huawei for what it is – an arm of the Chinese Communist Party's surveillance state."

Pompeo said the new sanctions were imposed "to protect US national security, our citizens' privacy, and the integrity of our 5G infrastructure from Beijing's malign influence."

The Commerce Department action affects Huawei affiliates in 21 countries including China, Brazil, Argentina, France, Germany, Singapore, Thailand and Britain.

The order blocks any of the companies from acquiring US-based software or technology used in products or components.

US officials said there would be no further extensions for the sanctions waivers from the Commerce Department which had been allowed to minimize disruptions.

The Semiconductor Industry Association said that “these broad restrictions on commercial chip sales will bring significant disruption to the U.S. semiconductor industry.”

“We are surprised and concerned by the administration’s sudden shift from its prior support of a more narrow approach intended to achieve stated national security goals while limiting harm to US companies,” the association said.