Gamingdeputy reported on September 19 that the minutes of conversations between Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei and the ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Competition) Foundation, coaches and gold medal winners were exposed. Ren Zhengfei said that the unknown is called science. In today’s world, The boundary between science and technology is getting closer and closer, and the time for science to be transformed into technology is getting shorter and shorter. If we wait until universities fully understand the theory before proceeding with technology development, we will have no first-mover advantage and no competitiveness. Therefore, Huawei Approximately US$3 billion to US$5 billion has been invested in basic theoretical research, working with universities to jointly study seemingly useless science.
Ren Zhengfei said that we are about to enter the fourth industrial revolution, and the foundation is large computing power. The fourth industrial revolution is magnificent and its scale is unimaginable. Today’s young people will be the leaders of the future era of large computing power. In twenty or thirty years, The artificial intelligence revolution in China will definitely see the stars of young people shine.
Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said that Huawei has always adhered to the principle of openness and embracing global talents, and is willing to work with academia to cultivate outstanding talents in the information field. Huawei hopes to promote the development of the global information industry and the cultivation of talents in the information field in various countries by sponsoring competitions and organizing exchange activities.
Ren Zhengfei emphasized that in addition to ICPC competitions, Huawei is also willing to sponsor competitions in other disciplines to promote talent cultivation in basic sciences. Huawei welcomes ICPC to hold competitions in Huawei campuses and will open the R&D area to young people so that they can experience Huawei’s working environment. At the same time, Huawei is willing to open technical problems and internship opportunities to outstanding young people around the world to help them gain access to Huawei’s cutting-edge technologies, thereby promoting their growth and development.
Gamingdeputy attaches the full text of this conversation:
Thanks to the chairman of the ICPC Foundation and more than a dozen coaches for bringing 58 gold medalists from world computer competitions to our company for inspection and competition. We will continue to support your global activities, and hope that through you, you will introduce competitions in mathematics, physics, biology, etc. for global college students. We will also provide sponsorship and support.
1. We are about to enter the fourth industrial revolution, and the foundation is large computing power. Today’s young people may be the leaders of the fourth industrial revolution tomorrow. Our purpose in supporting the competition is to build a stage for young people to bloom the spark of life.
Teamwork is not only the basis for winning the competition, but also the basis for survival, and it is also the need for human beings to prosper more. We need to work closely with each other. When everyone comes together to inspire and squeeze each other, new science and technology will burst out. This time, elites from 25 countries gathered together. We got to know each other and had a platform for common communication. Coaches and students, students and students, teams and teams can inspire each other, which may leave a fire and create a spark. The young people take the fire back to their motherland to ignite the fire of their own country. New science and technology will definitely create more social wealth, eliminate poverty, improve human life, and lead the way to common prosperity.
The fourth industrial revolution is magnificent and its scale is unimaginable. Today’s young people are the leaders of the future era of large computing power. Human society has great expectations for you. The artificial intelligence revolution within 20 to 30 years will definitely see your stars shine.
2. Huawei has always adhered to the principle of discovering and developing talents, but never monopolizing talents. Stay open and embrace talents from all over the world.
The development of the world is inseparable from technological progress and the exchange of talents. Faster speed and better talents are the foundation of national prosperity. Huawei is willing to work with academia to cultivate outstanding talents in the information field, but it will never monopolize talents. After these talents train, learn, and grow at Huawei, they will return to their home countries in the future, which will also be conducive to the revitalization of the information industry in various countries.
3. For competitions, we will provide long-term and stable support for development and sponsor the organization of global and regional competitions. Huawei is willing to sponsor ICPC coaches and contestants to come to China for exchanges. Huawei-funded competitions are not intended for Huawei. We must not only persist but also increase our sponsorship of such activities.
Support the holding of future ICPC global competitions in China, and invite outstanding players and coaches to visit China to see more. For example, Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Guizhou… You can also go to Xinjiang, Tibet and other border provinces to experience it. There are also some small counties that are very beautiful and worth visiting to understand China’s industrial development and urban construction; just sit and sit Take the high-speed rail and experience China’s development speed; drink coffee, eat barbecue, and experience China’s food and cultural atmosphere.
In addition to supporting or co-organizing global software competitions, we also need to support competitions in other disciplines, such as information, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, neural networks, etc., and gradually begin to support young people in these disciplines to stimulate interest in scientific research. , thereby promoting talent cultivation in basic sciences.
4. We will open campuses around the world to support ICPC competitions held in Huawei campuses. We will also open the R&D area to everyone and invite young talents to experience Huawei’s working environment.
Huawei is willing to open up technical problems in the information field, open internship and research opportunities to outstanding young people around the world, help them gain access to Huawei’s end-edge management and cloud platform, and participate in the basic and cutting-edge exploration of climbing Mount Everest; it can also be through various channels, such as organizing difficult problems and challenges Competitions, open seminars at Huang Danian Tea House, etc., allow young people to understand the real challenges of the industry, and win prizes in breakthrough problems. This saves work-study time for better learning. Through this process, young people can also People grow better.
Live Q&A session:
Russian ICPC coach: I have been the coach of the ICPC championship team for 10 years. Many companies support talent development, but perhaps because it is not directly related to business, they are reluctant to support large-scale competitions such as ICPC. Since Huawei established a local resource center to support competitions, everything has changed a lot. I found that Huawei is not only recruiting talents, but also helping local communities develop talents. We received strong support from the competition department, and 25 people from my championship team joined various Huawei departments. I would like to ask, why does Huawei feel that supporting competitions is so important to business development, or is it something that must be done?
Ren Zhengfei:Russia is a great country. Catherine introduced Western painting, music, philosophy… At the same time, the Qing Dynasty of China followed the path of isolation, so Russia achieved industrialization earlier than China. On this basis, basic theoretical research received great attention from the former Soviet Union and made great achievements, such as Zhukovsky, Mendeleev, Lomonosov, Popov… For example, recently, in the 1960s, a scientist in the former Soviet Union, Peter Ufimchev, was the first to discover that diamond facets have radio reflection capabilities. However, the former Soviet Union thought this thing was useless after studying it for a long time. Why? Because it was impossible and meaningless, the mathematician’s paper was approved for public publication. But after the Americans saw it, they felt like they had found a treasure and spent 20 years building the F22 stealth aircraft.
Although Huawei is a commercial company, it is not a profit-seeking company. For example, our sponsorship of competitions is sincere, not to acquire talents. In the future, we will increase our sponsorship of competitions. I just had coffee with Chairman Bill, and we talked about our hope that through you we can bring competitions in information, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, neural networks… to China. Regardless of whether it is related to us, we can provide support. As Chairman Bill said, science and technology should be used to create more social wealth, eliminate poverty, and take the path of common prosperity.
Sun Teck (Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore, IOI member, Chairman of the Singapore Information Olympiad, and former ICPC team coach): First of all, I would like to thank Huawei for its strong support in training our students and participating in the competition. Secondly, I would like to introduce two other competition organizations: One is IOI (International Olympiad in Informatics), which is a downstream partner of ICPC and mainly focuses on discovering and cultivating talents. IOI has encountered some problems. More than 90 countries have joined, but there are still many countries such as Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, and Myanmar that have not joined. These countries need our support. This is consistent with Huawei’s vision of spreading information technology and connecting the world. Countries that have joined IOI also face some problems. For example, they do not have enough resources to train students and therefore rarely win awards. Therefore, they have no chance to participate in ICPC. I hope Huawei can help the development of IOI. The other one is EGOI (European Girls Olympiad in Informatics), which is specially organized for women. This is a good trend. There is only one girl among the 58 people today, accounting for less than 2%. Regarding how to achieve gender balance in the competition, I hope Huawei can support it.
Ren Zhengfei:When Singapore was founded, Lee Kuan Yew made two of the most important policies. First, he determined that the national language was English, which connected a very large world; the other language was Chinese, to be precise, Mandarin and simplified Chinese, which combined the two. The whole world is connected. When we hold computer competitions today, we must unify the language of computers and unify the standards of the era of large computing power. Through our coffee drinking and our communication, we must eliminate the obstacles and barriers between us.
This time we have connected the 25 participating countries. A single spark can start a prairie fire and ignite the fire in your country. Coaches and young people are welcome to come to China at any time. You have already added the communication methods of many of our colleagues and friends, so you can maintain communication and contact. Today you young people are our eternal partners. In addition to ICPC, we must also support IOI, as well as competitions in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, neural networks and other disciplines, and jointly promote the cultivation of talents in basic sciences.
Meza (Professor of Computer Science at the Polytechnic University of Santa Maria in Chile and Director of ICPC Latin America): I am very proud because a Latin American player won this championship, and of course we have many outstanding students. Perhaps it is because of relevant restrictions in the Americas. In Latin America, Huawei does not have many job opportunities. Does Huawei welcome Latin American talents to intern? For example, will there be some systematic support when coming to China?
Ren Zhengfei:Whether they are talents from Latin America or other countries, we welcome them to Huawei. We have an online platform called “Huang Danian Tea Thought House”, where students can contact relevant experts to communicate. If the experts think that you should come to China to intern face to face, that is fine. To give a simple example, who invented 5G, which the United States has devoted all its efforts to combat? Who invented the Polar code? It is Professor Arikan from Türkiye. He published a mathematical paper more than ten years ago. We discovered this article two weeks after it was published, and organized thousands of scientists and experts to study, analyze and engineer it, and then created 5G, which is leading the world today. So, where in the world is there no grass? There are talented people everywhere, most likely in the United States. No one knows where genius comes from. Welcome to communicate with our experts online.
Professor at Peking University and ICPC East Asia Regional Competition Director: In the past ten years, American companies have been sponsoring, but since Huawei started sponsoring global events a few years ago, Chinese companies have finally come forward to sponsor global educational events. We are very proud. I would like to ask you what expectations you have for higher education?
Ren Zhengfei:Not only do we need to continue to fund activities, but I think funding is not enough and we need to continue to increase it.
Higher education should teach students according to their aptitude, and should not always emphasize unified teaching materials; in primary and secondary education, I think the slogan “don’t lose at the starting line” is incorrect, and excellent students cannot be left to wait. China’s education must be revitalized. In recent years, Huawei has formed a research and development team composed of more than 7,000 foreign scientists and experts with high noses, more than 13,800 international students, most of whom are Ph.D.s, and more than 100,000 outstanding Chinese students. Difficulties turned around. If the United States closes some disciplines in the future and does not allow Chinese students to study abroad, then we will only be able to obtain talents from Chinese universities, and universities cannot be homogenized.
French contestant: There is a kind of scientific research called useless research. To say it is useless is actually because we don’t know where it will be applied in the short term. This kind of research may be mainly done by universities rather than companies, but in fact this kind of research is very important in the long term. . What is Huawei’s view on this type of useless research? Will Huawei invest in this type of research?
Ren Zhengfei:What is science? The unknown is called science. Now everyone knows that the United States has a relatively high degree of liberalization in scientific research. Before World War II, basic research in the United States was very weak. It basically relied on European theories to support its industry, aviation, and aerospace… Just like China today relies on the West, a large number of theorems, laws, formulas, and inventions… all came from Europe. After the end of World War II, the United States found itself lagging behind Europe because it basically did not have much basic theoretical accumulation. American scientist Vannevar Bush wrote a book called “Science: The Endless Frontier” and proposed that the United States should study seemingly useless and distant things, that is, it has studied a lot of “useless” science. After World War II, the United States Basic science thrives. After the 1990s, a professor from Princeton University in the United States named Stokes wrote a book “Basic Science and Technological Innovation: Pasteur’s Quadrant” about how to use application to drive scientific exploration and gather “useless” science into something new. become useful. In this digital age, the United States dominates the world, and we have developed on the digital train of the times.
In today’s era, the boundary between science and technology is getting closer and closer, and the time for science to be transformed into technology is getting shorter and shorter. If we wait until universities fully understand the theory before we start technology development, we will have no first-mover advantage and no competitiveness. . Therefore, we ourselves have begun to pay attention to basic theoretical research, investing approximately US$3-5 billion in basic theoretical research every year. We work alongside universities, embedded in each other, on these seemingly useless sciences.
Brazilian contestant: Due to US sanctions, Huawei has encountered a lot of difficulties in recent years. I want to know how Huawei has responded. Is Huawei ready to develop sustainably in the international market? And should we restore relations with the United States, or can we continue to develop without restoring relations with the United States?
Ren Zhengfei:US sanctions are indeed pressure on us, but pressure is also motivation. Before the crackdown, we built the basic platform in the United States. After the US crackdown, we were forced to switch to another platform, which was difficult. After four years of hard work and the hard work of 200,000 employees, we have basically established our own platform. In the future, we may not necessarily run on the same basis as the American platform, but interconnection is certain.
Bangladeshi contestant: Are there any opportunities for ICPC contestants to join Huawei this time? What are the future career opportunities?
Ren Zhengfei:Our competition activities are entirely academic and have no direct relationship with joining Huawei. If you are willing to join Huawei, you can apply to our local human resources department. We welcome outstanding talents from all over the world to join Huawei. Bangladesh has a population of nearly 200 million. The West once judged Bangladesh to be the next emerging industrial country. Now that Bangladesh has outstanding talents like you, it will slowly lead the country to develop faster. But what is the basis for faster development? It’s speed. I hope you can take the lead and bring what you have learned back to Bangladesh to raise the country’s development to a new speed.
ICPC Mexico & Central America Director: Some technology companies such as Oracle and Cisco have set up R&D centers in Mexico. I would like to ask if Huawei has any plans to set up R&D institutions in Mexico or Latin America in the future?
Ren Zhengfei:Regarding the layout of overseas R&D, you need to ask the director of our 2012 laboratory, and we will take your opinions back. Mexico has a very splendid civilization, and modern people have not yet fully understood the Mayan culture. Mexican civilization originated very early, and we believe that this kind of civilization can be found in other countries around the world. We may also consider it there, but it still depends on the specific deployment of the 2012 laboratory. In the past, our deployment was centered on the United States and distributed around the world. Later, when the United States attacked us, we centered on Europe and gradually centered on Eurasia, and fewer visits to Latin America were made. Latin America is still subject to US control, and we need to further evaluate the control situation.
Russian Contestant: With so many people in Huawei, what kind of management is used to achieve efficient operations?
Ren Zhengfei:When I first founded the company, I visited the United States to understand their management using IBM as the subject. First, IBM’s corporate goal management is to serve customers. Everything must be customer-centered, so that the company has an overall sense of direction, which unites employees. Second, learn from IBM’s implementation of IPD, that is, how to include market and service representatives in R&D. IPD is a forward-looking leadership organization to guide R&D forward. Next, I learned IFS, ISC finance and supply chain management from IBM. In this way, the process system will be clear. The most important issue is distribution. Let’s study where Huawei’s wealth is and how it is distributed. We believe that wealth lies in the heads of employees. Weigh the heads and weigh them, and we will give you how much they weigh. Our distribution method is divided into three parts for labor and one part for capital.
Iceland player: I don’t know if it’s true or not. I heard before that you are a fruit fan?
Ren Zhengfei:Because my daughter is studying in the United States, it would be very inconvenient for her to attend class if she does not use Apple. We don’t want to be exclusive. We often explore why Apple’s products are so good, and we can also see the gap between us and Apple. I am very happy to have a teacher who gives me the opportunity to learn and compare. It would not be an exaggeration to say that I am a fruit fan from these perspectives.