Huawei officially opens its 2,600-acre R&D center in Shanghai, will accommodate over 35,000 scientists and engineers

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This facility is larger than Apple Park and Microsoft's Redmond Campus, combined.

Huawei Lianqiu Lake R&D Center
(Image credit: Shanghai Municipal People's Government)

Huawei just completed its Shanghai Qingpu project and was given the official name of Huawei Lianqiu Lake R&D Center. EE Times China (via machine translation) says this sprawling facility costs over 10 billion Yuan (almost $1.4 billion) and covers 2,600 acres. The company also constructed over 40,000 offices, which is expected to house 35,000 Huawei personnel.

The Lianqiu Lake R&D Center is located about 30 miles West-Southwest of the center of Shanghai, and it’s expected to gather all of Huawei’s research and development efforts, including work on HiSilicon, wireless technologies like 5G-A/6G, Huawei smartphones, automobiles, and digital energy research. The R&D Center is divided into eight districts and will have roads, trains, and elevated overpasses to connect each one to another.

The project started in September 2021 and took the company over three years to complete. Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei said that the company used the Chicago Lakeside Complex as inspiration for the project. He added that the Yangtze River Delta is a beautiful environment suitable for foreigners, where the seven or eight hundred foreign scientists working at Huawei won’t feel like they are in a different country.

Huawei Lianqiu Lake R&D Center train

(Image credit: Shanghai Municipal People's Government)

The Huawei Lianqiu Lake R&D Center is the highlight of the Xicen Science and Technology Innovation Center, situated in the Yangtze River Delta Integration Demonstration Zone. This is part of China’s push to develop its homegrown technologies as it tries to separate itself from the West.

Huawei needs to strengthen its research and development, especially as it bore the brunt of America’s sanctions in the ongoing chip war between Beijing and Washington. By combining many of its R&D centers into one monolith, the company could streamline its operations and make collaboration between different departments much easier.

This flagship project also shows how much Huawei is investing in future technologies. The Huawei Lianqiu Lake R&D Center is so large that it eclipses the facilities of some of the biggest tech companies in the world. The massive area covered by the project is larger than Apple Park and the Microsoft Redmond Campus combined, which only measure 175 acres and 502 acres, respectively.

Aside from investing in office and real estate, Huawei is also doing its best to attract top talent. Huawei is offering competitive salary packages, especially as it can no longer hire American citizens and green card holders. As other foreign high-tech companies are also slowly being pushed out of China because of U.S. bans and sanctions, the company must now offer deals to attract Chinese talent from abroad and get them back home.

Jowi Morales
Jowi Morales
Contributing Writer

Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.

3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bit_user
    Shanghai is a big city. I'll bet they're going to lose some employees who don't want to commute to the new location. Some of the rest will have to move, in order to have a livable commute.

    My company once had an office in Shanghai, but couldn't renew the lease on that office. The next most suitable location would've had many of our employees commuting 2 hours each way, I'm told. So few employees were willing or able to do such a commute that they opted to terminate the Shanghai operation instead. TBH, that was probably also influenced by the political climate of the time.
    Reply
  • ace2be
    Interesting article. The campus area number needs some correction though. The "Chinese Acre" (mu) is not the same as an imperial acre. One hectare = 15 mu = 666.67 sq. m. The original Chinese article headline states 2400 mu campus, whereas it also quoted Ren Zhengfei saying 2600 mu. Anyway, 2600 mu should be 428 Imperial Acres.
    Reply
  • Ken Lek
    bit_user said:
    Shanghai is a big city. I'll bet they're going to lose some employees who don't want to commute to the new location. Some of the rest will have to move, in order to have a livable commute.

    My company once had an office in Shanghai, but couldn't renew the lease on that office. The next most suitable location would've had many of our employees commuting 2 hours each way, I'm told. So few employees were willing or able to do such a commute that they opted to terminate the Shanghai operation instead. TBH, that was probably also influenced by the political climate of the time.
    Huawei will build a company town around it's labs. It will work with property developers (who are in desperate times today) to provide cheap or subsidized housing for many of it's employees. Some will be free, some subsidized (sale or rental), some at a low markup.
    Residents in town/campus will enjoy company gyms, send their kids to company sponsored creches and schools, visit affiliated hospitals if sick, and enjoy the scenic landscape in their free time. Huawei is prestigious and respected in China. Many staff will choose to live in this campus, for convenience, price, or just to be in a community custom tailored for geeks.
    Reply