Ren Zhengfei'S Latest Viewpoint: How To Understand "Independent Innovation" And "Basic Research"?

In January 17th, Ren Zhengfei interviewed a number of Chinese media at HUAWEI headquarters in Shenzhen, which is rare in recent years. Although the main purpose of Ren Zhengfei's move is to convey confidence to employees and customers in the current situation, the two is to let the society feel relieved and show that HUAWEI has "not suffered much difficulties", but what impressed him most is his unique view on such issues as "independent innovation", "protection of intellectual property rights" and "basic research".

1. Ren Zhengfei does not support the term "independent innovation"?

Reporter: in today's environment, how do you understand the significance of independent innovation to Chinese companies?

Ren Zhengfei: I never support the term "independent innovation". I believe that science and technology are the common wealth of mankind. We must step forward on the shoulders of predecessors, so as to shorten our progress into the world leading process. Everything should be done by oneself. Besides farmers, other people should not have such an idea. I support independent innovation if it is spiritual. That is to say, others have been innovating. We should respect others' intellectual property rights, get permission from others, and pay for them. If we do it over and over again, we must get permission or pay. This is the law. Of course, scientists are self innovating. I mean the engineering innovation of our company.

Reporter: on the one hand, HUAWEI invested huge amounts of money in research and innovation every year. On the other hand, you said that you should stand on the shoulders of predecessors, and share the balance between technological innovation and independent research. What is the balance between them?

Ren Zhengfei: in spirit, I support independent innovation. All scientists' innovation is autonomous. It is a spirit. I think it is possible to emphasize more independent innovation in the unknown. For example, Chang'e 4, people do not give you, you have to be independent. But we cannot emphasize self innovation at a low level. Do you have to screw a screw? Small and medium-sized enterprises in Japan and Germany are great. A Japanese enterprise has made a screw for decades. The biggest feature of this screw is that it will never loose. All the world's high-speed equipment, high-speed rail and airplanes all use this screw. I have been to Lycra, Lycra is a village factory, an old lady, 35 years of work to paint the outer layer, saying that the machine can not be replaced, can not do her so fine, so she is still doing. I feel that it is okay to do a good job on a solid basis, but do not say that others have done it. I have to repeat it to prove that I am glorious and great. I think it is only by opening up that we can achieve our goals quickly.

2. how should China's intellectual property system be adjusted?

Reporter: for a long time, the most common criticism of the West for Chinese enterprises, including HUAWEI, is theft of intellectual property. How do you view this topic?

Ren Zhengfei: I can not represent Chinese enterprises, but represent HUAWEI. HUAWEI has gone through several major divisions in the United States and has achieved good results. Of the 87805 patents HUAWEI has now, 11152 of its core patents are authorized in the United States, and our technology patents are valuable to the information society of the United States. We have already obtained patent cross licensing with many Western companies. HUAWEI can not represent other enterprises, but we absolutely respect other people's intellectual property rights.

Reporter: Why did China not generate the enterprise that developed through intellectual property authorization mode like Qualcomm? There are some enterprises in Shenzhen, who have their own intellectual property rights. Because of the encirclement of intellectual property litigation and foreign companies, they have no way to sink to the downstream of the industrial chain. I want to ask you, how should China's intellectual property system be adjusted?

Ren Zhengfei: if we regard intellectual property as a real right, the development of scientific and technological innovation in the country will be even better. That is, if the intellectual property law is part of the property law, infringement of intellectual property rights is a violation of property rights. Such an environment is conducive to original invention. Without original invention, where is the future "Qualcomm"? We should realize that intellectual property protection is conducive to the long-term development of our country, rather than our excuse for Western cards. Therefore, first of all, our country should not support fake products or support Shanzhai, but to support originality and preserve originality. It is possible that the economic development will be slower today, but the quality will be better, and more competitive companies will emerge.

3. what is the future information society? What basic support is needed?

Reporter: I remember when I first interviewed you in 2014, you said, "what is mysterious about HUAWEI? "The veil is wrinkled" is very impressive. Now that five years have passed, do you think the veil of HUAWEI has really been unveiled? Now there are more voices in the world.

Ren Zhengfei: that's more wrinkles. Because the bigger the radius, the more problems. If we shrink to a small point, like farmers' land, only potatoes are so large that the outside world will see clearly, no one will question it. The bigger the radius, the more we can't see clearly. We will not see clearly after the next 10~20 years, so we will have more doubts, but doubt is not a big problem. In addition, doubts are also valuable. Scientists are naturally skeptical, or how can they discover new things? He does not believe that there will be new discoveries, so questioning itself is also a by-product of inevitable progress.

The development of information society in the future is unthinkable. In the next two or thirty years, there will be a great revolution in the human society, and there will be a lot of changes in the way of production. For example, artificial intelligence is used in industrial production, which greatly improves production efficiency. We visited our production line, which can not be called AI, but a part of AI, but there are not many people on the production line. Five years later, the production line may only need five or six or even two or three people, mainly for maintenance. Of course, many people in our production line are doctors, not ordinary operators, especially in the production of optical chips.

In this era, the focus of a country is to develop education, and the basic education is the basic education, especially in rural areas. Without good basic education, it is difficult to have basic research with action. Give rural teachers more money, so that outstanding talents are willing to be teachers, excellent children are willing to enter normal schools, such as our older generation of revolutionaries Mao Zedong, Su Yu, Huang Kecheng, Xu Guangda, Yun Daiying...... All of them came from normal schools, and we can achieve "using the best people to train better people". But this is not the case now. Teachers are poorly paid, and children can not earn much money if they see much knowledge, so they do not want to study very much. This will not adapt to the society in the next twenty or thirty years, and the society may be divided. Full use of AI will probably return to the west, because there are no trade unions, social welfare problems and strikes. It is impossible for AI production to move to low cost countries such as Southeast Asia, Latin America and southern Europe. Our country is faced with this kind of division. We should mention the basic education to the highest program of the country so as to meet the future revolution. Improving the cultural quality of the whole nation should be the main responsibility of the party and the state and the obligations of every citizen. Today, the tall buildings in the streets are getting old in two or thirty years. If we invest in education, twenty or thirty years later, these poor children will become doctors, and the country will become more prosperous.

In this important historical turning point, HUAWEI can only manage itself well and not manage others, so we invest heavily in it. Just now CCTV reporter asked me, "you earn very little money, why there are so many scientific research inputs". For example, our profit is about 9000000000 this year, but the investment of scientific research is 15 billion ~200 billion US dollars. In fact, where 15 billion of us voted, they are all costs, in fact, still customers. The money our customers give us is not to generate profits, but to generate input.

Why should we go ahead? The cycle of new technology entering the era has shortened. In the past, when scientists had done equations, after fifty or sixty years, these equations were finally found to be useful. After fifty or sixty years of electromagnetic theory, it is discovered that electromagnetic theory can be used for radio. Today is impossible. This process is very shortening. Even if it can not be called millisecond, it is also very short. If we wait for the division of labor and do not enter basic research, we may lag behind the times.

China is a large country with large population. If we become a big talent country, we will have more confidence in competition with others.

Today, we see that HUAWEI has been a lot of success. In fact, it is very important for foreign scientists to succeed because HUAWEI has higher wages than Western companies, so many scientists are working in HUAWEI. We have at least 700 mathematicians, more than 800 physicists, more than 120 chemists, six thousand or seven thousand experts in basic research, and over sixty thousand senior engineers and engineers. The formation of this combination is advancing. Therefore, our country must compete with the west only by stepping up its practical and practical education in fifty or sixty or 100 years.

Reporter: what are you going to do for this?

Ren Zhengfei: we have done a good example for HUAWEI. What does HUAWEI have? Have nothing at all! HUAWEI has neither the background nor the resources, except for the human brain. We have gathered the heads of a group of Chinese and some foreigners and achieved today's achievement, which proves that education is great.

Reporter:... I want to leave the idea of basic research.

Ren Zhengfei: in technology research, we have a saying that "a cup of coffee absorbs the energy of the universe". Why? That is, when we learn from Google, Google's parent company makes money to study what is hard to achieve, and also studies the elixir of life. It also contributes to the human society and spanfers wealth to explore the future of human society, and so do we. So we talk about a cup of coffee that absorbs cosmic energy, which is learned from Google. It is to throw money out and explore the future of mankind. We support basic research for university professors. He is like a lighthouse that can illuminate us and illuminate others. But we understand faster than others, so we make things faster than others, that's all.

We have compiled more than 15000 basic research scientists and experts to turn money into knowledge, and we have more than 60000 applied talents to develop products and turn knowledge into money. We are giving appropriate support to the exploration of scientists outside.

4. should basic research be done by enterprises?

Reporter: if this is the case, then basic research is not suitable for the company to do.

Ren Zhengfei: but if the company doesn't do it, we can't lead or lead the era. We can't earn excess money. We can't have excess investment. Then we will become a foundry. Why do we have the best way to get ahead? In electronics, we have made the most advanced chips ARM CPU and AI chips, and we are also the most advanced in the world. In terms of quantum, we are following, at least after studying other people's quantum computers, how do we use them.

In the three of the electrons, photons and quanta, we have both in front of the human society, and quantum computation is behind them. Therefore, only by carrying out basic research can we have excess profits before we can make strategic investment in order to lead the society forward. Scientists outside welcome us because we regard them as lighthouses, and we do not infringe upon any interests of them. The United States has a bill of independence, which grants universities and non-profit research institutions the right to apply for patents and patents for federally funded inventions, thus creating a powerful driving force for the spanformation of scientific research achievements. We also follow the bye bye bill. We have no selfish motives. But we are not working with schools, mainly with professors. I must have this leader to cooperate with you.

Reporter: if you evaluate HUAWEI's current basic research, what kind of technology is HUAWEI in? What is your personal goal? I remember when you joined the national science and technology conference two years ago, you said HUAWEI has entered the no man's land. Is that still the same level?

Ren Zhengfei: Generally speaking, we should not be satisfied with our basic research evaluation. Why? In the past 30 years, our real breakthrough is mathematics. Mobile phones and system devices are centered on mathematics, but in physics, chemistry, neurology, brain science, etc. In other disciplines, we are just beginning, and still lag behind. The future electronic science is integrated with these sciences, and not many people are willing to rush to us. Therefore, we are not enough in building a scientific information society in the future.

When it comes to unmanned areas, the most important thing is to talk about "time delay", such as driverless and so on. Some time ago, my wife and my little daughter ran around the freeway for more than two hours in Europe on a German driverless car. Europe has entered the L3 phase of the pilotless car. You can see that our cooperation with Audi in the driverless area is also in the L3 stage. The highest phase of the pilotless vehicle is the L5 stage, and the L5 stage 5G starts to work, but there is also the delay problem.

Therefore, the exploration of real unmanned areas is to reduce the time delay. Any circuits must have capacitors and resistors, which will lead to time delay. The development of the era has entered the saturation curve stage. We are just on the top of this curve. The new company is easy to catch up with us. This is the risk we think of in the future. You see, it's easier to make an electronic product now. Our advantage is no longer an advantage. In this field, we are worried and unable to run.

This time, Premier Li Keqiang visited Belgium to see a design platform for IMEC. The prime minister saw that the platform could increase the electronic bandwidth of human beings to 3 nm and 1 nm. If the limit can not satisfy human needs, graphene can not replace silicon at the same time. We stack the chips, but the biggest problem is to dissipate the heat between the two chips, which is also the cutting-edge technology. Therefore, thermal science will be the most advanced science in the electronics industry. In this respect, our research is also leading, which is too abstract. Therefore, we are all looking for ways to deal with the challenges ahead, but if we look for them slowly, we will soon find them.

5., businesses are saying they want to be a "century old shop". What does Ren Zhengfei think?

Reporter: before making an exchange with an entrepreneur, he said a word "every day is trembling with fear, walking on thin ice, worrying about being caught up by others, worrying that the user will abandon his company." I wonder if you have such worries.

Ren Zhengfei: this "trembling, walking on thin ice" is an adjective. We also say it every day. If that's the way it is, it can't run at all. We still have plans, but always exaggerate. It seems that we are really worried. Don't listen to those adjectives.

Reporter: other companies are saying they want to be a century old shop.

Ren Zhengfei: it is very difficult to be a centenary store, and the most important thing is to eliminate laziness. Once the chief executive said that we should sum up the mechanism of HUAWEI company. I said, chief, don't sum up. The first 20 years are positive progress. These 10 years are retrogressive. Why? That is to say, when people get rich, they begin to lazy and lazy. They send him to hard places and do not want to go to work. How to eliminate laziness is a challenge for us. Therefore, we emphasize that self criticism is to dispel self laziness gradually through self criticism, but I think it is not easy.

6. will AI become a "bubble"?

Reporter: in your interview, you mentioned artificial intelligence many times. Now I see many companies have regarded AI as a major goal, and it must be called AI. Are you worried that this trend will lead to a bubble in AI?

Ren Zhengfei: AI may be a bubble. But don't be afraid of the collapse of the bubble, the failure of expert engineers, we recruit, why? We need to change our production structure and change the structure of our services around the world. We need these people. Why do I have to fail? Those who fail are too ambitious and too small. But my platform is big enough for you to dance. Why is artificial intelligence bubbling? Is the same thing, the world actually needs only one company, such as office system, who can replace Microsoft? After the real robot came out, 90% of the robotic company would be difficult. Therefore, it is difficult for me to explain whether artificial intelligence has bubbles. Our company in engineering, for example, the base station in Xinjiang high mountain, is the Jingdong express little brother riding a motorcycle up the mountain, put the equipment in accordance with our instructions, we will adjust the test in Xi'an, pass the acceptance test, the report and invoice will come out, and the money will be paid to you. If we are not using artificial intelligence to improve productivity, our company will not be able to achieve low cost, impossible to get high profits or increase strategic investment in the future.

7. talking about the industrial environment from Trump's "greatness".

Reporter: why do you say Trump is a great president? This seems to have caused much discussion.

Ren Zhengfei: because Trump has lowered the tax rate very low, which is conducive to industrial development. For the United States, it has a hundred years of competitiveness. But if he keeps arguing with the country all day long, frightening the country, and arresting people, they dare not invest, so no one will make up the tax he lost, and the US economy will begin to slump. But the next president will not change the low tax system. He will go all the way to improve relations. He will say, "you invest, the United States is good, the tax is low, the land is cheap, everything is cheap." perhaps the United States really rejuvenated. He rated the tax reduction high. Deng Xiaoping dug a "depression", where a lot of water flows, and China's economy has risen. So, from this point of view, he is a great president. But the other point is not to criticize him? No one dares to invest in the US now. Therefore, he has two sides.

In England, I heard Cameron and Osborn talk about lowering the tax rate, and at the same time, reducing the welfare benefits. How does the welfare decrease? All the remedies must first apply for employment, and do community services without employment, such as caring for the orphans and widows, helping to do housework, cleaning the street, and you can't get the relief. Britain is continuing to reduce taxes, and now it has dropped to 17%, and Britain has resumed its investment window.